Lily Evans and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
by scarmander
Summary: The day after Lily ends her friendship with Snape, she wakes up with this little tiny twinge of pain in her shoulder. It only gets worse from then on. She blames those bloody Slytherins. Oh, and also that one messy-haired toerag and his prattish friends.
1. Chapter 1

**Lily Evans and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day:**

 **Chapter 1: Ninnyhammers and Greasy Gits.**

So, here's how it starts.

She wakes up, on one cloudy spring day, with this little tiny twinge of pain in her shoulder – must have slept in one of those strange positions she sleeps in, she thinks as she begins to roll her shoulder back and forth, in the hope of finding relief. It doesn't really work, but she thinks that if she does it a _tiny_ bit harder, her shoulder will just pop in the right position, and everything will be alright. Yes. It has to.

But when she tries a tiny bit harder, nothing happens. So she tries again, one more time. And another one after that, she feels the creaking bone rotating, but never quite settling the way she wants it to. So, she sighs, rolls her shoulder back one last time, for good measure, pushes herself off her bed, and grabs her wand off her bedside table, and heads for the bathroom with eyes half closed. She bumps her foot on her trunk and has to stop herself from shrieking in pain, biting down onto her fist as she holds onto her leg with one hand and hobbles around on one foot.

She really needs a shower. A good, long, scalding hot shower. Yes, this is what is gonna fix everything. Maybe it will even help set her shoulder right.

The thing is – because there is always a thing, she thinks, gloomily – that the door to the dormitory's bathroom is locked. She groans, loudly, not even bothering to hide her discontent from the rest of her sleeping roommates. Of course one of them is already locked in the bathroom. Of course. This is going to be one of these days. Sure. Why not? As if yesterday wasn't bad enough, she scoffs mentally, as she slides down the wall next to the bathroom door. No, she will not think about yesterday. Yesterday is banned, forgotten, erased, nothing happened yesterday. Nothing happened between her and… No, he doesn't get to have a name anymore. She will not say his name, she will not _think_ his name, not ever again. She will not think about him, period. Not after this. He doesn't deserve this much from her. She feels her resolve tightening in her guts, she is quite sure of this. She knows this much. One night of sleep has settled this for her. Good.

She could go to the Prefect's bathroom, she ponders as she rests her head against the cold stone behind her and closes her eyes for a second, but she's still wearing her pajamas and her dressing gown and she doesn't feel like walking around without proper clothes on. Whose stupid idea was it, anyway, to place a bathroom on the 5th floor? It was so far away from all the dorms! Who, in their right mind, wanted to walk down the several levels of stairs to the common room and then walk around all those cold corridors that led to the bathroom in their pajamas? Not her. No thanks. Not today. Today wasn't a day for public humiliation.

She could maybe just go back to bed. Could? Should? Her Transfiguration O.W.L. isn't set until 2p.m. She has plenty of time – or, err, what time is it, anyway? She tries to look around the room for a clock, shifting her body around and leaning sideways to try to get her own clock in her line of sight. She's pulling on her shoulder a little, and she thinks that it might set it straight. It doesn't, but she gets a glance at her clock: 7:37a.m.: good. She considers the prospect of going back to sleep one more time, before deciding that she needs to go get breakfast if she doesn't want to ruin the rest of her already bleak-looking day. Bleak, dreary, gloomy, sad, cloudy, and – dare she say it? Shitty. Yes, very shitty indeed. Her day was going to be a shittingly bad day, and she would hate every second of it. Especially the Tranfiguration O.W.L. that was bound to ruin her life. It wasn't that she was _terribly bad_ at Transfiguration, no, far from it, but she would have much rather not have to deal with that exam right now. And it's not like she's _terribly good_ at it either. Unlike some people she knows. Lucky bastards, the whole lot of them. She sighs again, leans forward to try and soothe the still-slightly-throbbing pain in her toe.

The door next to her opens suddenly and she jumps to her feet, caught by surprise. A half naked Mary MacDonald walking into the room, leaving a trail of droplets of water behind her. Today will be a day for small victories. This is one of those.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Mary mutters, shifting her towel around with one hand. "Have you been waiting long? You should have banged on the door, I thought everyone else was still sleeping. I mean, besides _her_."

"It's fine, don't worry. Who's _her_?"

"You know who!" Mary says exasperatedly. "I'm not saying her name!"

She does know who. Mary has been fighting with one of her other dormmates, Jane Holloway, since last March. Two months of petty fights and name calling has left a bitter taste in her mouth at the sheer thought of having to deal with those two in the same room. She'd much rather not stir the pot any further.

"Are you telling me Voldemort has taken up permanent residency in our dorm?" She asks her, swiftly changing the subject, ignoring the small shudder the sheer utterance of the name gives Mary. "Should I be worried? Is he going to try and steal my lip balm too?"

"Ha-ha. You're a right funny gal, aren't you, Lily Evans?"

"I try," she says, with a shrug, flashing her a grin.

"And I don't _steal_ your lip balms, I borrow them and I lose them."

"Wow, that makes it all better. Thank you for clarifying the situation! Just so you know, I'll put tracking charms on them next year."

"You wound me, Lil', you wound me so," Mary replies, dramatically holding onto her chest with both hands.

"Yeah, yeah, you poor soul. I'm a very cruel person."

"Nice of you to admit it… You never quite told me what happened, last night, by the way."

"What do you mean?" She hears herself say those words, a lump forming in her throat. She knows what Mary means. She can only mean one thing.

"Between you and Snape."

And there it is. Lily feels her heart tug at the mention of his name and figures he has the same effect on her as Voldemort has on everyone else these days. He probably would enjoy that, she begins to think bitterly, before realizing she's doing exactly what she said she wouldn't do. She sighs, rubs her hand over her brow, and bites her lip.

"Oh… Him… Nothing. There was nothing to discuss. I don't even want to talk about it. It's over and done with, it should have been over a long time ago."

"But are you okay, though? You've known him for a long time, it mustn't be easy, right?"

"I'm fine, really, it's okay," she mumbles as she heads for the bathroom. "I just need to take a shower, I'll meet you in the Great Hall, alright?" she says over her shoulder, with a wave, not quite daring to look Mary in the eyes.

"Yeah, sure..."

She closes the door behind her before Mary even has time to finish her sentence, shuts her eyes tight and refuses to let any of the tears forming in her eyes fall. Mary is clearly confused, and worried, but it doesn't matter. Soon enough, the school year will be over, and none of this will matter. No one will remember any of it come September. He won't try to come bother her in the summer, not with Petunia here. He won't come to her house. She'll be safe, there. There's a sob threatening to break free and she has to grab onto a towel to stifle the sound as it escapes.

She just needs to take a shower. Showers solve everything. A bath would be better, but she doesn't have much time if she wants to go get breakfast with Mary. So, she strips down, takes off her slippers, feels the coldness of the stone beneath her feet and turns the taps on. She ends up on the floor, sitting under the hot stream of water and lets it soak her hair even though she hadn't planned on washing it. Might as well do it now that it's wet. She spends a good 15 minutes in peaceful silence, doesn't even feel the tears slide down her cheeks, and when she's done, the tears are gone. Showers are good. Who needs Cheering Charms when showers are right there?

She feels better now, the warmth of the water still hanging on to her body, it is newly soothed and freed of the feelings she's been trying to avoid since yesterday. She feels lighter now. The pain in her shoulder lessened by her liberation. Crying is good. Crying is part of the grieving process. And he _is_ dead. The boy she'd met all those years ago had died, probably a long time ago. She just hadn't realized it yet. And now she would grieve and she would get over it and life would go on and she would be okay.

The plan for the day was set: going on as per usual. Yes, good.

So, as per usual, she puts on her uniform, and before she even considers brushing out her hair or putting on make-up, she wakes up her unsuspecting dormmate by using a tickling charm on her. This is usual. Some sort tradition in her dorm, even. She tries to stifle the laughter bubbling in her chest by clamping her mouth shut with one hand when Dahlia Fletcher starts kicking at her sheets and begins to shriek.

"Ahhhh! For f-fuck-fuck's sake! Li-lily E-vans! St-op, stop it! Sto-o-op!"

She gives up trying to stop her echoing laughter, and jumps onto Dahlia's bed. She mutters the counter curse and begins to tickle her by hand, dropping her wand onto the ground. There's a loud groan from a nearby bed, but she ignores it.

"How'd you even know it was me?"

She doesn't really answer, probably because she's laughing way too hard to do so, and so Lily continues her assault on her ribs.

"Are you awaake? Hey, tell me, Dahlia-dearest, are you awaaaake?"

She's giggling as she fights against all four of Dahlia's thrashing limbs, she ends up having to wiggle her way out of Dahlia's reach, she leans back and pretends to give up only to pounce back onto her a second later.

"Are you awaaaake, noooow?" She repeats, drawling out the vowels in a purposefully high-pitched tone she knows Dahlia hates.

"Y-yes!" She screams out as her hand slaps Lily's, trying to make her stop. "Now, leave me alone you… You ninnyhammer!"

"A what?" Lily blurts out loudly, laughing even harder, as she makes an unladylike snort, forgetting to tickle her poor victim for a second. "That's a new one!"

That one, tiny, seemingly insignificant second of carelessness ends up being Lily's fatal flaw, and her – tragically very short lived – reign of terror upon Dahlia Fletcher's still drowsy body ends with her being tortured mercilessly by way-too-apt fingers. They've been down this path before, she should have known better.

In the end, she has to beg for mercy, not before she manages to throw in a couple of ridiculously outdated insults, but still, Dahlia Fletcher has won this battle. She hears Dorcas groan loudly once more before she huffs and starts to make loud noises around the room.

"Alright, you rascal, I think we've pissed off Meadowes again," Dahlia says, as she puts both of her hands in the air to show she's done with her assault, and Lily is finally set free. "We're sorry, Dorcas! Tell her you're sorry, Lily," she nudges her in the ribs to try and get Lily to comply.

"We're sorry, Dorcas. I know you hate mornings," she says, a smile still tugging at her lips, as she rolls around to look at her frumpy friend.

"It's not just mornings, I hate," she snaps as she stretches out her arms behind her head and yawns.

She still hasn't opened both of her eyes, and that fact alone makes Lily smile. Dorcas Meadowes hates waking up and she hates the noise Lily and Dahlia are prone to make in the morning. This is typical. Typical is good – great, even. Typical is normal. Typical means everything is the same it has always been.

"Oooh, alright, let's not get in over our heads," Dahlia says warily, as she tries to smooth out the situation. "You need coffee, Dory."

"I know," Dorcas sighs.

"Alright," Dahlia says, slapping her hands on her thighs, "I'm gonna go take a shower. You'll wait for me, won't ya, Lil'?"

She's getting up and Lily has to scoot over to avoid getting hit by her decidedly dangerous limbs.

"Yeah, sure. I'm not even done getting ready yet, my hair is still wet."

Dahlia nods and yawns, and continues on her way. Dorcas ends up sitting back on her bed as she rubs both of her eyes with one hand.

"Where's Jane?"

"She was already gone before I woke up," Lily shrugs. "I think she wanted to avoid seeing Mary."

"Oh, not this again! What's it been now, 3 months?"

"Almost, yeah."

"All this over a boy. A _boy_! It's not even like we have a shortage of those around, they're everywhere, Lily!"

"I'm aware, yes. We live in the same school. They surround me everyday too, you know."

"They're just a bunch of loud, irritating nuisances," she groans, and Lily snorts. Typical. "Oh, by the way, how did it go last night with, err… You know, that creepy, back-stabbing, blood-purist greasy git?"

And there's that pang in her stomach again. Great.

"Nice one," Lily mumbles, not looking her in the eyes.

Can she just not spend the day not having to be reminded of the "greasy git"'s existence? Is it too much to ask? Is he going to just haunt her like this forever, his dark, looming presence ruining every enjoyable moment she will ever try to have? She wants to bury her head in her pillow and kick her feet around, for good measure. This is _already_ getting frustrating.

"I know. I mean, I've been saving this one for a special occasion like this for years now."

"How many of those do you have laying around?"

"Oh, I've got plenty. I've had plenty of time to conjure up some good ones. All those years, Lily. All those years we told you, time and time again –"

"Can we not do this now?" She cuts Dorcas short with pleading eyes as she gets up to grab her hairbrush and fumbles around her bedside table for a bit, looking for her wand.

"Sure, we can do it tomorrow, I'm free all afternoon too, if you'd like, we can arrange a meeting. I should have written them all down. Meet me in that abandoned classroom on the fourth floor, on the left corridor. I'll read them all to you, alright? It'll be fun!"

Lily snorts, shakes her head and kneels down on the floor, looking under her bed. Her wand isn't there, but she finds one of her hair ties she'd thought she'd lost forever. Small victory number two.

"You're not even funny, Dory… Hey, have you seen my wand, by any chance?"

"No… Oh, wait a second… Here," she says.

Lily gets up and whirls around, grabs her wand from Dorcas' hand and thanks her. She begins to brush her hair with one hand as she uses her wand in the other to put a heating charm on her hair, it takes a while, and it's certainly not as effective as her hair-dryer at home, but it works.

Dorcas ends up getting ready way before she does, one of the perks of taking her showers at night and not wearing make-up, she tells her smugly, watching Lily try to "bloody, fucking damn it" make her eyeliner look symmetrical. She's on her fourth try. It's probably not happening today. She hates today. She gives up after that, uses the remnants of her eyeliner as eyeshadow.

"D'you think it's too much?" she asks Dorcas, pointing at her eyes.

"Hun, half the girls around here wear bright blue eyeshadow, I don't think anyone is going to even notice this. It kinda looks like you've done it on purpose. I dig it."

Small victory number three.

Dahlia finally comes out of the bathroom after what feels like forever and Lily's stomach is grumbling by the time the three of them are _finally_ climbing out the common room's portrait. This is where she saw him last. She wants to pinch herself for thinking about it. Bloody stupid ghost.

"I told Mary I'd meet her in the Great Hall," she recalls aloud, her fingers playing with the strap of her rucksack.

"I think Mary's probably left the Great Hall a long time ago. She's either in the library or by the lake with that sixth year Ravenclaw… What's his name anyway?"

"Mike something," Lily mumbles.

"It's Matt! I think his last name is Williams? Can't be sure. Isn't he related to that 7th year Hufflepuff prefect, Lil'?" Dahlia corrects. She, in Lily's opinion, always knows too much about other people's love lives.

"Who, Amelia? I'm pretty sure her brother isn't here anymore."

"No, not _Bones_. Sourpuss face, what's his name?"

"Oh, Rafe? Rafe Walters?"

"Yeah, that's the name. She said he was 'helping her study' Herbology last week, but I saw them in the library… Let me just say that there wasn't a single book opened at their table."

"Well, I don't know why she's still so hung up on what happened with Jane if she's dating again."

They all sigh, this is a thing that unites them all: the shrieking fights, dirty looks and insults have become unbearable. They walk down to the Great Hall in silence. Mary isn't here, and neither is Jane. She doesn't dare to look towards the Slytherin table, but she swears she can feel his eyes starring at her. Bloody ghost.

Dahlia picks up someone's forgotten Daily Prophet on the table, and starts reading the important stuff out loud between bites of her raspberry jam scone. Lily tries to shut off the words, she does not feel like hearing about the deaths of the family members of some renowned Auror, or the seemingly endless torture of a Muggle woman whose apparently unforgivable mistake was dating a witch. She can not bring herself to think about those horrid things today. They hurt too much. She doesn't have it in her to feel that pain today. There will come a time, a day, where she will pick up the newspaper herself, read those things and feel the pain, the anger, the revolt bubbling in her stomach, and she will want to fight harder than ever has. Today is not that day, and it is okay. It has to be. The burden is too heavy to bear today.

So, she finishes up her eggs, drinks her pumpkin juice in silence and finally speaks up. The girls have kept talking and she lost track of the conversation a long time ago. They're used to it, anyway. This is a thing Lily does. She gets lost in her own thoughts, forgets about the concept of time and space. Her friends don't mind. Dahlia thinks it's funny, Dorcas says she's a weirdo but doesn't care, Jane doesn't even notice and Mary would just throw food at her if she were here.

"I'll see you later, alright? I'll just go study some more in the library. I think Transfiguration is going to be the death of me."

"Tell me about it" Dahlia says, she's been telling them all week she's going to fail all her exams and she'll have to leave Hogwarts out of shame.

"Oh, you'll do great, stop it!" Lily replies, furrowing her brow. She's trying to make a point. Dahlia always worries too much.

"Bye!" calls Dorcas with a wave. Lily waves in return, picks up her bag from the ground and takes off.

She's already walking away when Dahlia calls her name.

"Lil'! Wait! Wait! Come back here!" Lily turns around, half-expecting Dahlia to be running after her. She's not, she is still very much sitting at the table, only she's brandishing a wand – _her_ wand.

She sighs, walks back and thanks her.

"What's wrong with you today?" Dorcas asks her, a twinge of concern showing on her face. She's prone to notice things like that. Bugger it all.

"I think the exams are wearing me thin."

"Last day, alright, hun. One last day. Tomorrow all we're doing is trying to get you pale freaks a tan."

"Yeah… Thanks for the compliment, by the way, Dory," she calls over her shoulder. "Find me in the library, alright? I'll be the pale, red-headed freak having a mental breakdown!"

She can hear her laughter behind her, and so she heads for the library with a smile on her face, wand firmly held in her hand, not quite daring to let it go. She sees James Potter walking down the stairs and swiftly avoids him. She thinks she's safe. He probably hasn't seen her. She hides behind a tall 7th year Gryffindor boy, whose name she _should_ remember, but doesn't, and manages to escape what would be a most disastrous conversation. He's stuck on one of the stairs directly above her now, and she sees him stick his hand in his hair. Typical. Still not good, though. He definitely hasn't seen her or he'd have yelled out her name, by now. Relief seeps into the depth of her stomach and loosens the ball of angst she hadn't realized had been forming. She makes a quick exit to her right and lets out a sigh. At least she wouldn't have to deal with _that_ mess today.

Once she gets to the library, she tries to spot Mary, but there's no sign of her blonde hair or pink hairband. Tell-tale signs she's probably outside, flirting with Matt Walters by the lake, as Dahlia had foretold. She'd be great at Divination. So, Mary isn't here, but Jane is. Her sleek black hair neatly held up in a ponytail and her quills scattered across the table.

"What have you done to your eyes?" Jane asks, squinting at her questioningly when she sits down next to her.

Small victory number three? Oh. Yeah. Not a thing anymore.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Vanishing Spells and Bespectacled Boys**

"Nothing," Lily answers defensively.

"It's different," Jane points out, with a curt nod.

"Yeah, I messed up my eyeliner and grew too impatient to try to do it again."

"It's good that it's different. You need different right now," Jane's tone is encouraging, like she's trying to teach a kid some good manners. It takes Lily aback.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've heard it all at breakfast this morning, some 4th year Hufflepuff was telling his friend about how Snivellus had tried to make a move on you last night, something about showing up banging on your door, to profess his undying love for you but you'd told him to go throw himself off the North Tower. Quite the tale, apparently. Don't worry, I told them they were wrong. You'd surely fling him off of there _yourself_. You can't rely on other people for this sort of stuff, you know. He could still manage to mess that up."

She's obviously trying to make Lily feel better. Lily twists her mouth to the side for a second, in a desperate attempt to fake a smile and Jane just stares at her for a second longer before going back to her notes. Lily knits her brows, and doesn't even manage to say a word. The whole castle is talking about this. The whole castle thinks this is a _joke_. They probably think it's funny, the _Death Eater_ and the _Mudblood_. What a laugh. She can feel neighbouring eyes peering at her, burning holes on the back of her head. She wants to scream. This will just have to be a silent study session, then. At least Jane hasn't said his name. That's another small victory.

She pulls out her books, a scroll of spare parchment, her ink and quills and puts down her bag. She opens her Transfiguration textbook to one of the marked sections, she's been trying to work on this for a month. She begins to frantically take notes on Vanishing Spells, before realizing she should take notes on Doubling Charms too, just to be safe. These are fine, she's fine with Charms. They're fun to do. But somehow these are tricky little buggers and she's managed to mess them up a couple of times. But it's alright, she's worked on those a lot in the past few weeks, and she's quite certain she's managed to become at least half-decent at it. All she needs to remember now is written in her textbook. She'll be fine. She begins to write down all the remembers about Doubling Ch arms, and then Vanishing Spells, she makes a short list of the essential information, just to make sure it's still all imprinted into her brain. And then, for good measure, she doubles and then vanishes one of her quills – one with a half-tattered feather that needed to be binned anyway – and conjures the original one back again. She's still got it. Good. She thinks, that maybe, the feather looks a bit worse, but not so much so that the examinator would shriek at her in horror for doing so.

She does it again, a couple of times, to be sure. And when she's done, she puts down her quill with a sigh. Jane looks at her, and she squints at her once more, a frown forming on her face.

"Does it actually look _that_ bad?" Lily finally dares to ask, fearing the answer. "My make-up, I mean. Should I go take it off in the bathroom?"

"That's not what I was thinking about. You just did all that so quickly! I've been working on this all morning, and I can't, for the life of me, figure it out. I hate Transfiguration. How are you so good at it? How are you so good at _everything_?"

She looks very irritated, right now, and Lily feels slightly guilty. She knows Jane struggles with some of her subjects. She should have proposed to help her. But, to be quite honest, she's not that good at everything. Jane just thinks she is because she's upset.

"And I didn't say it was bad!" Jane continues, now scowling, before Lily has the chance to offer to help her or contradict her. "Just different is all. You look more… I don't know – like Jacqueline Bisset? And less – let's say, Carol Burnett?"

"Are you telling me that I usually look like Carol Burnett? Is that a bad thing? What's wrong with her? I don't even know who that is!"

"Nothing! It's nothing, she's fine! I just meant..." starts Jane, but she stops suddenly, glancing over Lily's head.

"I mean, you _do_ look like Jacqueline Bisset right now. How had I not realized that before?" a new voice points out from behind her, making Lily startle. She spins around and has to refrain herself from groaning out loud. Why him? Why does she have to suffer through this _today_?

"How do you even know who Jacqueline Bisset is?" Jane asks, trying to tug a non-existent stray piece of hair behind her ears. A nervous tic of hers.

"I'll have you know that I so happen to have a few pictures of her in, err, what's that Muggle word again? For the skimpy bathing suits – Evans, you surely know the ones!"

It's apparently 'let's-ask-the-Muggleborn' day and no one had warned her. Even though Jane is a Half-Blood and knows the answer too, he'll never ask _her_ anything about Muggles. Bloody Pureblood git. She raises one eyebrow and has to stop herself from hexing him. She's in the Library, and Madam Pince is strangely bent upon not having students puking up slugs on her precious ancient manuscripts. Whatever.

"A bikini?" she asks, half begrudgingly, but manages to keep a quiet, even tone. She doesn't even know why he's still talking to her. She doesn't even know why _she_ 's answering him. He's just as much of an arrogant toe-rag as Potter. Why isn't she angrier right now? She should have already told him to scram.

He nods and there's a smirk tugging at his lips. "Yeah, those. I have pictures of other girls, too. I think one of them is named Tina Louise?" he hesitates, and she doesn't even know what to say. Neither does Jane, apparently.

So, after a short, awkward pause, which he doesn't seem to notice, as he makes a show of having an exaggerated dreamy look on his face, Sirius continues.

"Merlin, that one's something else alright," he muses, shaking his head in mock disbelief.

"Gross." Jane mutters, making a face, before she turns back to her books and starts silently reading again.

Lily makes a gagging sound, unable to just ignore him and keep working, and Sirius just winks at her smugly in return. Suddenly, Lily doesn't think she can take it any more.

"Merlin, Black, why are you telling us all this?" she groans. "I don't want to know what kind of perverted stuff you're into."

"I'm not… What are you implying, Evans?"

"That you're having fun by yourself looking at Muggle actresses when you're back home?"

"What's an actress?"

"Is this a joke?" she scoffs. He's surely taking the mickey, she thinks. He simply shakes his head, looking very confused by her taunting. "Merlin, you should have taken up Muggle Studies instead of Arithmancy."

"Oh, but you'd miss me if I weren't here to correct your charts."

She feels her nostrils flare up as her eyebrows shoot up and anger starts spreading through her veins. Arrogant berk. It's moments like these that make her question how much she really cares about her Prefect status. Clearly not enough, or she wouldn't be considering bloody murder in the Library, where there are plenty of witnesses to get her convicted to Azkaban. Maybe she'll manage to lure him outside, away from Remus and – oh, she thinks as she twists her torso around to look behind her, Peter Pettigrew is there too, sat next to Remus, but there is no sign of Potter. _Good_. She doesn't want to have to deal with Potter and his prattish ways today. He'd surely make up an excuse to come bother her some more, and would probably ruffle his hair – as if it needed to be more unkempt than it already was – or make some joke, or play with that snitch he was playing with yesterday or... What was she thinking about, again? Oh yes, luring Black outside to murder him in an abandoned classroom. Nice plan. She'll definitely have to remember that one. It will probably come in handy at some point in her academic career.

"Why in Merlin's bloody beard are you even in the Library?" she snaps, rolling her eyes. "I'm pretty sure _you_ don't need to brush up on your Transfiguration."

She's struggling not to let her anger show. Lucky bastard and his bloody genius brain.

"Remus made me." Sirius shrugs, nonchalantly, clearly and visibly unfazed by her anger. He never cares about anything. It makes her angrier, somehow. "He said something about some O.W.L. exam we might have this afternoon, I'm not too sure, to be quite honest."

"You know damn well we have a Transfiguration exam in… Oh, damn it, three and a half hours," she groans, looking at her watch.

Suddenly, her little argument with Sirius Black doesn't matter any more. Panic begins to set in and she breaks eye contact with him and begins to look for something, in her notes, in her textbook, _anywhere_ , that will solve everything.

"Shit, shit, bloody, buggering shit, Jane!" she tries to speak at a hushed level, but her panic is making it quite hard to control herself. "Alright. We need to work on this some more. I'll quiz you, you'll quiz me, alright?"

"Alright, I'll leave you two to it," Sirius intervenes, he seems to finally realize that their conversation is over and he should just be off doing something else, anything else, really, that doesn't involve talking to her. Or maybe he knows to avoid her when she gets to that level of panic. He's witnessed a few of her breakdowns over the years. He knows what to expect. "As always, ladies, t'was a pleasure speaking with you." he says with a short sort of curtsey, and Lily wants to throw her quill – still full of ink – at him.

He's starting to walk away, and before she even has time to sigh in relief, he stops and turns around. "Oh, and by the way, Evans." he smirks. "I think you totally look banging."

She doesn't know whether she should just puke on her table – to hell with her notes _and_ Pince and her strict non-puking regulations – or tell him to go stick a fork down his throat.

She doesn't say another word. She doesn't feel like speaking, because she doesn't trust herself not to yell at him. And yelling in the Library is certainly punishable by death according to Madam Pince. And so he leaves in silence, which strangely soothes her. One less nuisance to worry about. Dorcas is right about that. Boys are annoying and loud and never quite know when not to make comments about a girl's fitness level. And so, she goes back to her notes, and begins to help a very panicked Jane.

Lily quizzes her, and she tries to correct her mistakes as kindly as she can, because she knows how Jane gets when she's wrong. She'll get discouraged and will just want to stop working on it altogether. So, she tells her about all the things she gets right, to divert her attention from her mistakes. And alright, maybe she embellishes some things a little, to make her feel better. And maybe she pretends she's not quite sure about some of her answers when Jane quizzes her in return, but in the end, Jane looks quite relieved. Which is quite a contrast to the gloomy, snappy mood she'd found her in earlier. Her half-truths about conjuring and vanishing spells, are just that, half truths, and Jane needs those more than discouraging, blunt honesty.

Dorcas and Dahlia don't show up before 11:30. She's half-surprised they even showed up at all.

"Why are you here? You know lunch is in half an hour, right?" Jane asks bluntly, wording her own thoughts aloud.

"Yeah, yeah, we got sidetracked on our way here." answers Dorcas with a pointed look towards Dahlia, whose cheeks have already begun to turn pink.

"What do you mean?" Jane enquires, staring at Dahlia.

"Nothing!" Dahlia protests, but the soft shade of pink on her cheeks has turned crimson.

"Right." Dorcas snickers.

"Has she done it again? Oh, Dali." Lily complains.

"She was at her Care of Magical Creatures O.W.L. exam." Dorcas sighs. "We had to wait outside so she," Dorcas points her thumb towards Dahlia "could go be a little creep."

"I wasn't _creeping_!"

"Right."

"I just want to know what he sees in her!"

"No you don't." Lily says softly, half- wishing she hadn't said a word when they all stare at her, waiting for her to elaborate. "I mean it, Dahlia. You don't. What you're hoping to find is that she's not as good as you, which will mean you'll somehow still have a shot with him. But it doesn't matter, he wasn't right for you to begin with." Her voice is strained, somehow. Her throat feels tight, and she drops her gaze to look at her half-tattered quill.

"Like Snape wasn't right for you?" Dahlia says and Lily wants to fling herself out of the window. So they're having that conversation now, aren't they? In the Library, of all places. Great. Splendid. Brilliant. Can she just vanish _herself_? Why doesn't McGonagall teach them the most important stuff? Who cares about vanishing mice and worms and iguanas? She's the one who needs to disappear from the face of the Earth right now.

"I never dated him..." She tries to justify herself.

"That doesn't change the fact that he wasn't right for you." Dahlia cuts her, her voice soft with compassion. Lily's gaze rises to stare at her and she hates the look of semi-pity she can clearly see on her face.

She's right. Of course she is. And so Lily tries to swallow, but her throat hurts. She wants to open her mouth, to say something, anything. But there are no words. She is right.

"You can't keep ignoring the situation forever." Dorcas sighs, irritated by her silence.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You think we haven't noticed you won't even say his name?"

"He doesn't deserve that much from me!"

"And you flinch any time we talk about him." Dahlia points out, and Lily's blood starts to boil dangerously. "I think you want to pretend nothing happened, that it's all fine. But you've known him for what, six years now? It hurts, I know it does. You're hiding from your feelings, Lil' and..." She never gets to finish her sentence. This is the last straw.

Lily gets off her seat and kicks it back as she does so, it screeches a little but doesn't fall down. She's too angry to care, anyway. She sort of feels like it should have fallen down. It would make her feel so much better if it did. She wants there to be a mess. Bloody fucking buggering hell.

"Yeah, well at least you don't see me following Mulciber around trying to understand why he chose him – _them_ – over me!"

"What are you saying right now?" Dahlia snarls in a low voice, as she very slowly rises from her seat.

"That at least _I_ still have my dignity." she spats, and regrets it instantly. But the words are already out of her mouth and there's nothing else she can do. So, she grabs her bag, shoves everything she can sort of identify as hers on the table into it, and spins around. She bumps into Mary on her way out, and she tries to spark up a conversation, but Lily can not even hear her and keeps walking. She sees Madam Pince from the corner of her eye, but before she even has time to protest, call her name, or give her a lifetime's worth of detention, Lily is out the doors and into the first floor corridor.

She takes a shaky breath, tries to stop the tears that threaten to spill out and starts walking. She has no idea where she's going. She doesn't want to go back to her dorm. She doesn't feel like going to the Great Hall, she's not hungry. She feels nauseated. She doesn't want to go anywhere. This castle is too crowded. She doesn't want to see anyone. There might be people outside, but there will be less so than in the castle. This is her safest bet. The fresh air might do her some good. So she walks down the stairs – her vision slightly blurred by the tears that are now streaming down her face – and doesn't even notice the tall, messy-haired, bespectacled boy who watches her with anguish, leaning on the corridor's wall right next to the staircase.

James Potter is responsible for this. He knows it. It's his fault if she looks utterly and heart-wrenchingly distraught. He should say something, he should apologize to her, he tried to prepare a speech, earlier, but didn't get very far. He wants to run to her, to hold her in his arms until her tears dry out and she lets out a shaky sigh and he can make some lame, awkward joke that will make her smile, even laugh, if he's lucky. He wants her to be happy. He's the reason she's everything but. It tears him apart to see her like this. She doesn't even see him, standing there, his back against the wall, and he's half a second away from extending his hand to her when she walks past him. He can feel the impulse running through his nerves and the muscles in his fingers begin to stretch out to try and reach her, but it's too late. She's leaving, now, her thick red hair swaying against her back and her rucksack bouncing against her side as she walks down the stairs. He swears he got a whiff of her perfume in the split second she walked past him, and that Amortentia could never be so sweet. He lets out a sigh, she will be the death of him, some day, he is quite sure of this. And he'll willingly let her be so. He balls up his hand against his side, and takes a single step, to try and see where she's going.

But she is halfway gone now, and heading towards the Entrance Hall's marble staircase. She's surely headed towards the Great Hall. Where are her friends? He's never seen her eat alone. She shouldn't be alone, right now. She needs her friends. And he wants to be there for her, but he's not her friend. It's his own personal tragedy. Surely, at this point, after five years of this, the ancient Greeks have nothing on him. Merlin knows the throes he's been through because of Aphrodite-reborn. Just a glimpse of her hair could be enough to make any beg for mercy. It has rendered him mute countless times. Sometimes he thinks that she can not be real, that he's imagining it all up. And sometimes, she scrunches up her nose and makes faces at her friends, or snorts a little too loudly, or calls him ridiculously elaborate names, or even points her wand at him threateningly and he realizes how real she is, how tangible, how fiercely and undauntedly _alive_ she is. He finds himself sighing again, and shoves his balled up hand in his pocket. She's gone. He hopes she's alright one last time before finally deciding to go annoy Peter, Remus and Sirius until they agree to leave the Library. Apart from his short trip to the kitchens earlier, he's been sulking in his dorm all morning, too guilt-stricken to do anything other than try and fail to prepare a speech to make her feel better.

Truth is, he saw her leaving and then coming back into the Common Room, late last night. He'd been playing Chess with Peter at a table in the corner of the room. And sure, he pretended he hadn't noticed a thing, but he'd heard the yelling and banging like everyone else. But, when Mary MacDonald, who'd been up until that point, calmly reading a book on the sofa, had gone outside to see what "in Merlin's bloody underpants" was going on, came back and told the entire tower about how Snivellus Snape – the greasy, snivelling, cowardly leech – had been yelling and banging on the door, he'd perked up. The Oily Prat had come to beg Lily to come out and listen to his, undoubtedly, pathetic attempt at an excuse, and James had seen how distraught she'd looked once she'd closed the door behind her.

Half the tower had been gathered in the Common Room, because his incessant wailing had caused quite a ruckus and everyone wanted to know what was happening. People had tried to ask her what he wanted and what she'd said to him, but she'd refused to answer, and after a few minutes, she had managed to climb up the stairs without having told a single soul about what they'd said to each other. Snape had stopped yelling once she'd came back, and sure enough, he was gone when James had gone to check outside not ten minutes later, even if the Fat Lady had been quite angry at him for doing so. He was quite sure the Fat Lady had been quite annoyed by Snape last night, just as he had been, as she'd been complaining all morning to any Gryffindor that passed through about that "terrible migraine" of hers. James knows what has happened between Lily and the Leech. He was there when it happened. He is quite certain he's the reason why Lily and the Leech aren't friends any more. It had been brash, irrational, of him to ask her out yesterday. He'd been feeling particularly brazen, _emboldened_ by the crowd and his friends' presence. That, and he'd spent half his Defence Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. daydreaming about her. So, when she showed up, to defend her friend, as he had known she would, he dared fate. He knew she'd say no, how could she ever say yes? But he at least had the pleasure of seeing how seethingly angry his question had made Snape. How utterly puerile and vengeful of him. His mother would probably disown him if she ever learnt about this. Not so much because of how he'd pants-ed the Oily Prat, she would surely understand _that_ , especially since he saved the ass's life a mere two months ago, but because of the unchivalrous manner in which he'd behaved towards the girl of his dreams.

And alright, there had already been some gossip at dinner last night, but it was nothing compared to the inane chatter he's already been hearing about today.

He makes his way through the bookcases and the tables filled with whispering students, waving at some of the people he knows along the way, sends a wink and a dirty hand gesture to some others, and spots Lily's friends, all gathered around a table and he can not refrain himself from listening in to their not-so-hushed conversation. He hides behind the closest bookcase, and keeps as still and as silent as possible.

"She's not okay, Jane. She's not." He can hear Dorcas' voice, he recognizes hers quite well, she was on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, in their third year. They're still friendly.

"She seemed fine to me. We spent over two hours working on Vanishing and Conjuring Spells, she seemed quite alright! I swear, she even argued with Sirius Black. That's how fine she was." He presumes that this is Jane. He'll have to talk to Sirius about what happened. He'll try to pass it off as a casual conversation.

"How is arguing with Black a good thing? You're just as delusional as she is. She's pretending that nothing happened." Dorcas continues.

"That's exactly how she acts whenever she gets a letter from her sister. That is not good news. She hasn't even said his name. She'll see him around the school eventually and it's not gonna be pretty." He isn't sure whose voice that is. Is it Mary's? It sounds like hers. But he's not sure.

"Of course it's not gonna be pretty, Mary. He doesn't deserve pretty. She stood by him way too long. He's been creepier than usual all year. She told me about those spells he'd been working on… I don't even know how you stayed friends with her, after, you know..." This one he doesn't know. It's too high to be Dorcas'. But she's right. The Oily Prat has been up to some dark, dark magic all year. He's got this scar on his cheek, right now, from yesterday, that still hasn't healed. He tried putting some essence of Dittany on it, to no avail. It's dark magic. That wanker has cursed him with dark magic.

"That wasn't _her_ fault! And Snape wasn't involved in that." Mary replies.

"He still called _you_ a you-know-what and she stayed friends with him."

"It sounds to me like _you_ 're the one who's mad at her, Dahlia." Mary's getting angrier, and so is he, from behind his shelf.

So it was Dahlia's? Lily's always been particularly close to her. What the hell is going on? Has he ruined every single one of her friendships? She can not be mad at her! She's done nothing wrong!

"Of course I'm mad at her! How are you not all mad at her?"

Is she serious? What's wrong with her? To say he's always felt like she seemed very nice!

"Because she's finally broken free?" Dorcas answers and he feels like hugging her, or getting her the best gift ever. And he's quite good at gift-giving. She's definitely getting something awesome for her birthday. Or Christmas, whichever one is closest. He'll have to ask around.

"He's always known how to manipulate her feelings, you know it's true, Dahlia. I don't think you're even really mad at her. You're just angry that she's sad and you can't do anything about it."

"Wow, nice psychology, Dr. Dork."

" _Dali_." Dorcas' tone is a warning in and of itself.

"Oh alright, but she pissed me off earlier."

"Yeah, because you pushed her too hard."

"So did you."

He hears a loud, obviously exaggerated sigh. "Yeah, I know."

"What are you doing, James?" Sirius asks him in a hushed tone, his mouth mere centimetres away from his ear, and he swears he almost jumps out of his own skin. His elbow – very, _very_ accidentally – slams into Sirius' ribs, but he just shoves him aside in retaliation and James stumbles for a second before steadying himself against the shelf once again.

"Are you listening in to their conversation? Nice!" Sirius starts, a huge grin on his face. He's glad someone finds this situation amusing. "What are they talking about? Is it me? Are they talking about how fit I am?"

"Shhh!" He drags Sirius as far away from the group of Lily's friends as possible, and they end up in the Herbology section, they manage to scare off a couple of young looking students, who must not be older than second years.

"Are you planning a prank on them? Nice!"

"No I'm not planning a ruddy prank on them!"

"Oh, damn, you know how bored exams make me! Can you try to plan a prank on them? Can _I_ hex Meadowes?"

James just stares a him, and waits for Sirius to realize he's not in the mood, and after a couple of seconds, Sirius gives in with a heavy sigh. "You were in a better mood yesterday. Oh, come on! Is it about Evans again? I saw her earlier, she was looking mighty good today, you know. You should have been here. She's apparently broken off her engagement to Snape, too. I heard Jerkins talk about it at breakfast. That ought to put you in a good mood, eh?" He's nudging him, now, with a teasing grin on his face. The thought of Evans with that… That bloody greasy leech makes his stomach churn, disgust throttles his guts and twists them around, for good measure. Sirius doesn't seem to realize, and continues. "Which, you know, you'd have heard too, if you'd been here."

"I told you!" he sighs, and shoves his hand in his hair to pull at it nervously. "I had a migraine."

"What are you? The Fat Lady?" Sirius snickers. "Stop bothering meeee, you rampaging, trampling wild beaaaasts with your comiiiings and goiiiiings. I have a terriiiiiible migraiiiine. You should _all_ learn to be more respectful of meeeee." Sirius' voice is uncharacteristically high-pitched and his accent is very outdated. It doesn't sound like the Fat Lady at all, but it still makes him laugh.

"You're a ridiculous poor sod, you know that?"

"Yeah yeah, you've told me plenty of times before. You still can't live without me, though."

"I don't know, I think spending the summer apart will do us some good, you know. Even married couples need time apart."

"Oy! You planning on divorcing me? That's rude, mate! I had something special planned for our anniversary!" Sirius is wiggling his brows in a suggestive manner and James cannot stop himself from laughing.

"Oh please, tell me more. Did you buy lacy lingerie?"

"Oh I bought _all_ of the lingerie, it's gonna be groovy!"

"Why do you keep using all these weird Muggle words?"

"Because it helps make me look foxy!"

James starts genuinely laughing, and soon enough, Pince is pushing them both out the doors and snapping at them all the while. This is why they don't come to the Library very often, because Pince doesn't let them in for too long, and he's still roaring with laughter when Peter and Remus follow them out. It doesn't matter anyway, it's lunch time already and he's _starving_.

Lily Evans is anything _but_ hungry. She is angry, hurt, confused, lonely, betrayed, anxious, panicked, and even bloody cold but she is not, for the life of her, hungry.

She's been pacing in front of the green houses for twenty minutes, and she can not stop huffing. How dare they? How dare they? How dare _he_? How dare he betray her like that after all these years? After all she's done for him! After all the countless times she's defended him! She's been so blind! All these years! So blind! He's going to want her dead, he probably already wants her dead. That's what they do. One day, when Voldemort tries to take over, and fails, inevitably, he has to fail, he will die serving him. How many people will he have tortured by then? How many people will he have killed by then? The thought of this horrifies her. She sinks down one of the windowed walls of Green House n°2 – she thinks it's 2, but isn't sure. The place is completely deserted. She's still crying, sobbing, even. But there's no one to see her cry, and that's another small victory. She's lost count. Was it five, by now? Or technically four, since three was obliterated by Jane's comment. Victories are hard to come by these days.

Severus Snape is no longer her friend. He probably shouldn't have been for years, now. Maybe she could have saved him. Maybe she did something wrong along the way. If she'd noticed, way back when he'd first started hanging out with Mulciber and Avery, how he'd began to change, she could have stopped it. Guilt starts to spread around her guts, and she cradles her head in her hands. If only…

"Isn't that the little Mudblood bitch?" a loud voice voice calls out.

She doesn't even want to raise her head. She knows who this is. Speak of the devil and he shall come with pathetic insults. Great. Fucking worst day ever.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Bloody Lips and Beating Hearts**

"O-oh fu-uck," she breathes out, her voice interrupted by her heaving chest. She can feel the hiccups building up in her guts. They're walking up to her, now.

She's sniffling, and wipes her face on her sleeve, and shoves her other hand in her pocket. It's a good thing her make-up is already ruined. She doesn't feel so bad about it now. She doesn't want the bloody gits to see her crying like this. She needs to put on a brave front. She cannot let them take this away from her. They've already taken too much from her. She swallows, closes her eyes for a second and wiggles her fingers around her pocket. Why isn't her bloody wand in here? She tries another one, and a third one, on the inside of her robes. Her pockets are decidedly empty, and they're drawing closer.

Where the bloody hell is her wand? It's the third time today. Did she forget it inside? Is it in the Library, that's the last place she remembers seeing it, and using it. Shit. Alright, alright. Breathe in, breathe out. There are three of them. And Mulciber is perhaps twenty feet away now. There's Yaxley too, strolling behind, but she doesn't recognize the girl next to him.

Is the bloody wand in her bag? She needs to check, very quickly. She gets up, sniffles some more, picks up her bag and opens it – almost rips the top off, actually – and starts digging around, desperately. She pricks her finger on a quill, finds another one of her hair ties, that's always good but she feels like throwing the damn thing away, and finally, finally finds what she's looking for, stuck underneath one of her books.

"What are you doing here all by yourself, hmm? Aren't you afraid someone might take advantage of the situation?"

Lily snaps her head up, and takes a look. Shit. They're right in front of her. Her heartbeat quickens and she tenses up.

"Especially now… You know – that you have no allies left? Who's gonna protect little miss Mudblood now?" Mulciber continues, and she hates him so much in that moment she doesn't know whether to tackle him to the ground or to hex his head off.

"Who says I need to be protected?" she scoffs, and hopes he cannot sense her fear, her sadness. She doesn't feel particularly brave, right now. She feels tiny and lonely. They're three against one. She cannot let them see her afraid. She cannot be afraid. So, she lets anger take over, glares at them and tightens her grip on her wand, her hand still shoved inside her bag. She can easily disarm one or two of them before they even have time to say a word. She's going to have to be quick, if need be. She hopes it doesn't come to that.

"I think your time is up, and you know it. There's no more Snape to defend you, now, you're no longer off limits. I can't wait to have my fun with you."

"You know I'm still a Prefect, right? You know that, you see that badge on my chest, right?" She points at the shiny golden pin.

"What are you gonna do, take points off Slytherin as you scream in pain? I can't wait to see you try." He has this sinister grin on his face, and she knows he means it. The things he's done to students thus far… She stares him right in the eye, she won't let him scare her.

"I'm sure Dumbledore will be very happy to know you haven't learned your lesson. You do remember what he told you, right?"

"Oh, no no no, let's not bring the old man into this."

"Why, you afraid of him? You should be. Hell, I think you're scared of _me_. Look at you, you haven't even drawn your wand out, right now. I think you have every right to be scared of me. I know all your dirty little secrets. All your special tricks. You don't know mine."

She's tempting the devil, now. She's acting braver than she really is, it's really stupid of her, but she cannot stop herself. She's so angry, not just at that evil, inhuman piece of rotting fungi in front of her, but at everything and everyone. And alright, maybe at him in particular. And maybe a little bit more so at… Snivellus. Yes, that's his name now. It has to be.

"I think you should learn to know your place, filthy beast!" roars Yaxley, who bumps into Mulciber as he makes his way towards her. He's taller than Mulciber, broader, too, but he doesn't scare her nearly as much as Mulciber does. Maybe it's because she knows what kind of perverted, demented stuff Mulciber likes to do to people, maybe it's because she knows that as beefy and aggressive as Yaxley is, he's not the smartest kid around. She doesn't know who the girl hiding behind them is, she looks younger than them, she can't be too much of a threat. That's what her world has turned to – trying to figure out whether or not a twelve or thirteen-year-old is a threat to her.

"Alright, Yaxley, keep quiet, you're gonna give everyone a migraine. Don't make me take points off so close to the end of the year, what are you, this year, is it in third or fourth place? With all those Quidditch matches you lost, it's no wonder."

The two nitwits are on the Slytherin Quidditch team, and holy hell, she has to say that they got purely and properly _trounced_ this year. They won one single match, very narrowly so, against Ravenclaw, and that was after they'd managed to send half the Ravenclaw team to the Infirmary with countless foul plays. She knows how mad this makes them, she's seen their faces after every match, has heard from Se… Snivellus, about the grudge that's deepening between them and the Gryffindor Quidditch team. They're all terribly jealous of Potter's talent. She wants to rub it in their faces.

"What do you even know about Quidditch, you Muggle bitch?" Mulciber shouts and she rolls her eyes.

She's not even really offended any more, she's heard those words too many times for them to still have an impact on her.

"Enough to know when you're getting your sorry asses handed to you by the Gryffindor Quidditch team – wasn't it twice, this year? I think it was twice. That was nice. Really, Potter _outdid_ himself all year. What was that last score again? Something around 350 to 60? Man, wasn't that something to behold."

And that's it. That's how she gets the both of them to draw their wands out. Predictable.

"What do you think you're doing? Do you want detention? Is that what you want? Put those away." She draws hers out of her bag, takes a single step towards them.

They're staring at her, and unlike the girl behind them, they're not moving. Their wands are still pointed at her, but they haven't thrown any curses at her yet. This is slightly confusing.

"I am going back inside. Amycus is waiting for me," the little girl speaks out with a haughty tone. "Bye now, see you in the Common Room," she waves vaguely towards the two boys, who don't even so much as turn their heads towards her, spins on her heels with a very straight back, and walks away.

"Training them early, aren't you?" Lily dares to ask. "Are you planning on training them all at that age?"

She's being stupid. Stupid and brave. Too brave for her own good. Her dad would be furious at her. Her mum would probably cheer her on.

"Oh, you have no idea what we're planning to do, once the right people are in charge," Yaxley snarls at her, his face twisted in disgust.

"Well, I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with mass murder, torture, and the suppression of human rights, but go on, I might be surprised. Are you planning on giving out free Butterbeer? Will there be free concerts? Man, I really want to meet Stubby Boardman."

"You better watch yourself, you Mudblood scum. It won't be long, now."

"I can't wait. We both know who's better at magic. You're all talk, the both of you, with your wands pointed at me, threatening me… But you haven't even tried anything yet. I think you know, you both know, that if you'd so much as tried anything I would win, and it wouldn't actually be that hard. And so, you don't do anything. Because being bested by a girl _and_ a Mudblood at the same time? Oh, now _that_ wouldn't look good if Voldemort ever found out, would it?"

"DON'T YOU DARE SPEAK HIS NAME!" Yaxley's at it again, his loud voice should terrify her, it doesn't.

They're positively seething right now. Yaxley is shaking with fury and his face has gone all red, which clashes fiercely with his blonde hair. He looks like a strawberry-vanilla ice cream, she thinks, and the realisation makes her giggle.

"Voldemort," she says, still giggling.

And that's when it all takes a turn for the worst. Men and their fragile egos.

She had imagined that as soon as they'd barely even had had time to point them at her that she would have shouted "Expelliarmus!" and sure enough, both of their wands would come flying towards her. But they hadn't done that. They'd stayed put. She sort of wishes they had tried to curse her. But, it doesn't really quite go how she had naively thought it would. She ought to have known, by now, to expect the unexpected.

So, what she _hadn't_ expected – but really, really wishes she had – is the fist that comes crashing into her jaw, instead of a spell, which forces her to stumble backward and she feels the back of her head hit the window sill behind her, the blunt edge of the wood digging into her scalp. Her hand instinctively goes to touch her face as the other reaches back to try and steady herself.

Well, she's not giggling any more.

"Who's the _Muggle_ , now?" she sneers immediately, pushing herself off of the window. It takes her another second before she realizes there's something dripping from her lips. She slides her fingers towards them and feels the warm liquid coating her skin and nails. Her head feels tight, she can feel a blinding pain emanating from the back of it, her mouth is numb and she has trouble understanding what's just happened. The shock of red on her hand as she lowers it to look at it is what makes it all click. She's bleeding, quite profusely so. She swallows and tastes the iron on her tongue. _They did this to her._

There's blood on her face, on her hands and in her mouth. There's _bloody damn blood_ in her mouth. This is the same blood that they hate her for, and there it is, in blatant display, for everyone to see. She hopes it terrifies them.

The pain shocks her, humiliates her. The red of her own blood on her hands stains her, marks her. They've left their brand on her. This is what they want, her body is somehow no longer entirely hers. She feels their hatred pulsating through her teeth, as the pain echoes around her bones. She grips her wand so tightly there are sparks flying off of it in small bursts. It's funny, in a way, because they look like the stars that are dancing in front of her eyes. Merlin, she can feel the headache already beginning to worsen. Her head is throbbing, it's kind of nauseating, in a way.

So, she thinks, they've really been letting her out easy for the last five years, haven't they? This is the first time they're resorted to actual physical violence against her. There's a newfound form of anger inside her that won't ever be settled with magic or words.

She spats the blood in her mouth on Mulciber's shoes, throws a full body-binding spell at him, as she shoves past him to reach for Yaxley. There's loud thud behind her, but she doesn't even flinch, he's probably fallen on the ground.

Yaxley must have realized what he's just done, what he's going to have to deal with, now, because he's taken a few steps back. She's furious – enraged, really. And she really, really wants to blow his head off. And she really, really feels like running back to her dorm to hide in her bed for the rest of the day. She doesn't do either of those things. There's a strange sort of cold determination that engulfs her, and she sees the flicker or fear behind the pale blue eyes that are now avoiding her. She scares him. This is both very satisfying and terrifying to her. That's not the kind of person she is. She doesn't scare people, she makes them laugh and tries to make them as comfortable around her as possible. How can she scare someone so badly they won't even look at her? And yet, here she is, blood dripping from her face and onto her robes, sticking to her fingers, anger burning her alive, she doesn't feel the pain in her jaw. She takes another step, and when the coward raises his wand at her, she sends it flying without a single word. She doesn't even have time to realize she's just done wordless magic before she raises her bloodied hand to her face to wipe her mouth and slaps him across the face. She _marks him_ with her own blood. There he is, now, bloodied strawberry and vanilla. This is everything he hates, she thinks, and he seems too shocked to even move.

So, she shoves him – she wants him out of the way, away, far away from her – and her wand sends another burst of sparks as it collides with his robes, and ends up burning the fabric. He stumbles back and shrieks in pain as he tries to stop the fire that's starting. He dives down towards the ground to reach for his wand.

She _accios_ her bag towards her, because there is no way in hell she's staying here a second longer. She hears shouts of pain and anger behind her, but keeps on walking. There might be some stubborn stars still dancing in front of her eyes, but it's alright, she'll go inside. Inside is great. Her vision is starting to get blurry – and so she pauses for a second, rubs at her eyes with shaking hands, then starts walking again. She tries to shake off the dizzying blur, but fails miserably.

Except she stops dead in her tracks a few steps later. There he is. She hasn't seen him since yesterday and there he is. Of course he's here. Of course he's seen what just happened and didn't do anything to try and stop it. Of course. _Severus Snape_ – the name is out now, she can't hide from it any more – is in front of her, and her face is covered in blood, her jaw is probably red from the blow it has just received and he's staring at her with this pathetic look on his face. She blinks a couple of times, tries to swallow. Her throat is tight.

"Lil..." he tries to say in a soft voice. She wants to slap him across the face with the same bloodied hand she's just used.

"Don't," she growls. And he at least has the decency not to continue.

He wants her to forgive him. The nerve! She glares at him.

 _He wants her dead. He wants her dead._ She wants him gone. He can see her anger on her face, it's always been very obvious. He knows her too well not to see it. She _hates_ him. He can see it on her face, too. There's no going back from that.

She's still bleeding.

Her heart won't stop beating hard against her ribs and she's still bleeding. And he's staring at her with disgust on his face, now.

This is too much. The world starts spinning dangerously. _He wants her dead_. He's right in front of her and he wants her dead.

So, she tells him so. Bleeding lips, bruised jaw, fierce gaze and all. "They want me dead. _You_ want me dead." She's not even accusing him of anything. It's a statement, pure and simple, her tone is even. He doesn't get to refute that.

And yet, he tries.

"I never..." he begins.

"You do," she cuts him short. He doesn't get a say in that. He's never going to speak to her. Never again. This is over. This is how it ends.

Her legs start to wobble around, struggling to hold up her own weight. Shit, is she going to faint? Not right now. She can't faint now. She can hear her heart in her ears, that's never a good sign, but she has worse things to deal with right now.

"I hope it's worth it," she hears herself breathe out in a voice she barely recognizes as her own, as she looks him dead in the eye. She wipes her own mouth again, puts away her wand in her pocket, and walks away. He doesn't even say a word. There's nothing else to say. There are no tears left in her eyes. This is over.

When she stumbles into The Great Hall, she doesn't quite understand why everyone stops talking and why they all stare at her. She'd been walking aimlessly, her mind too far gone between the shock and the numbness for her to realize where she'd been heading. This is the Great Hall. Alright. Great. Familiar ground. She quite feels like ice cream right now, she hopes there's some for dessert.

"Evans? Evans, are you alright?" someone's voice calls out.

She doesn't answer, truth is, she doesn't know.

"What happened?" someone else asks her. She just shrugs, closes her eyes for a second. Now that's better. The light is blinding her. The noise starts getting louder, voices and clattering forks and knives that make her head pound. She doesn't want to open her eyes again. This is better. So much better.

"You're bleeding!" screams another voice. "Lily? What's happened? Lily!"

There's so much noise. She clenches her eyes, but the sound won't stop and her head hurts. She drops her bag on the ground, next to her feet. Now if she could just go sit down on that bench...

"We're gonna get you to the Hospital Wing, Evans, okay?"

"No – No I'm good, here. Hey, is there ice cream? I really want ice cream."

"What? No, no, you have to go to the Infirmary. You're bleeding everywhere." She feels gentle hands, and she's trying to see who's taking her away from the noise and clatter but her eyes won't focus, even when she blinks and blinks.

"I'll just go fetch Dorcas and the others, alright? You take her there, please don't be an idiot."

"I'm not going to just dump her somewhere! Who do you think I am? Honestly! I'm taking her to the Hospital Wing, McKinnon, for real. Oh, grab her bag, please."

"Yeah, alright. See you in a bit, alright? I'll find them, they can't have gone far."

All she can see are spots of colours floating around. They're leaving the Great Hall, now, she thinks. The voice is still complaining. "The nerve of that girl, I mean, I wouldn't leave you to die in a corner, you know?"

She makes a non-committal groan in response, because she has no idea what he's actually saying.

"Alright, yeah, that's too much blood. I'll just..." Lily hears some more mumbling before she feels a tingly, cooling sensation on her lips. "There, I stopped the bleeding. Hang on a second, will ya? I'll just… _Scourgify_. That's a bit better."

"That's nice of you, thank you… But, err, who are you?" she decides to ask.

"Oh Merlin, you've gone barmy, haven't you?" the voice answers, and she'd be positively offended if her head didn't hurt so much and she could actually focus on the words. "You know me, insane woman. My name's Sirius Black, we were having a chat just an hour ago? You remember that?"

"No, I know who you are, Black, I just can't err, what's that word? The one with the eyes thingy?"

"See? Oh fuck, is it that bad?" he sounds genuinely concerned, and he stops pushing her towards… She doesn't actually remember where they're going. He puts both of his hands on her scalp and she lets out a yelp.

"Fucking hell. You're bleeding there too. What the hell happened to you?"

"I don't know, just… He punched me and… Where are we going?"

"The Hospital Wing, I've already told you."

"Did you? That's nice of you. You're nice, you know, for not letting me die. That's nice."

"Yeah yeah, you're welcome, Evans. But shit, have you been cursed or something? Is it a memory spell?

"No, I don't think so. There was a fist, and that was it. Just bam, you know, and then blood. Loads of that."

"Well, alright, Pomfrey will be thrilled to have to deal with that. I mean, worse case scenario, you stay like this forever. Won't be much of a change, will it?" he sniggers. "I mean, you've always been a bit weird, but not proper insane weird, you know?"

Quite frankly, she _doesn't_ know. Do people really think she's weird?

"Am I weird?"

"No! I mean, you have your moments. But it's alright, you're fit enough so that it doesn't really matter. Err… Don't tell James I said that, alright?"

"Why would I talk to James? Who's that? Do you mean Potter – James _Potter_?" she manages to say, as she struggles to keep both of her eyes open. They've reached the stairs, there are many, many people around. The noise is killing her.

"Yeah, you barmy bint." Black tells her, with a nudge, except her balance is way off and she almost tumbles up the stairs, but he catches her just in time.

"Oy! I'll have you know I defended his Quidditch talents earlier, that's why I have – this," she says, as she points her finger towards her face in a circular motion. "So be respectful. He owes me my face."

Sirius is actually halfway lifting her up the stairs at this point. He's put his hand around both of her shoulders and is basically carrying her sideways. She lets him do so because she doesn't quite trust her legs to work properly.

"That's nice of you. I'll make sure to tell him that. That'll make his day. Who did this to you anyway?"

"Do you mean who _punched_ me or who... you know, was er... there?"

"Both," he says with an assured tone. He hates the Slytherins more than she probably ever will. It's a very complicated story, apparently, and she doesn't even know the half of it. So, she knows her answer will set him off.

"Yaxley's the one who punched me. Mulciber was there too. Then there was… Snivellus."

"Oh I see you're sticking to that, then? It's a good one. My personal favourite. I thought it was a one-time thing yesterday, but I like that," he starts, with a somewhat cheery tone, but then stops abruptly, and she doesn't see his face, but she can clearly hear his voice get angrier. "So… They're just going around punching girls now? Just so you know, they're dead."

"That's nice, you're nice, right now, that's weird," she says, as she just leans on his shoulder, to rest her head.

"Wow, you really are out of it. How many times have you told me I'm nice in the last five minutes? Ten? We're going for a world record, I reckon," he's trying to spark up a conversation, but she's too tired to keep talking. He seems to have understood that, and she thinks it's nice of him to continue talking instead. "Alright, you'll be okay, we're almost there anyway. But we're gonna get them good, I promise you."

"Yaxley might already be in there, he was on fire when I left," she manages to mumble, barely opening up her mouth, but he seems to understand what she's saying anyway.

"Nice! How d'you manage that?"

"An accident, I didn't mean to. My wand just, er, does this thing when I'm too angry, with the, er… sparks thing?"

He lets her slip from his grasp for a second, and she feels her body slide down, her knees giving out under her. She's about to fall down in a rather pathetic manner, just sliding down towards the floor when he catches her again.

"Oh shit, alright, I'll just..." She feels both of his arms grabbing her and lifting her up. "You're heavier than I thought, Merlin. Alright, see, we're almost there. Just this corridor next."

"Thank you, you're nice. Have you always been nice?"

"Oh I like you so much better with your head all bashed up… Alright, we're here."

She heard the loud creaking of the doors as he opened them up, and saw the light pouring in through her closed eyelids.

"Poppy!" Sirius yells, way too loudly for her taste, but he seems to know exactly what he is doing, and so, she doesn't complain. And sure enough, she hears quick footsteps coming their way.

"I thought I'd told you to stop… What's happened?"

"She says she got punched, but I don't know, she hasn't opened her eyes in a while, I feel like maybe she's been cursed, somehow?"

"I haven't! I just got punched is all."

"Alright, bring her over there."

She can feel herself being pushed towards the end of a bed, and then hears the screeching sound of a chair being dragged across the floor… And then Pomfrey is touching her head. All that Lily can think about is that her hands are cold.

"How did you hit the back of your head, dear? You said you got punched, didn't you?" Pomfrey asks her worriedly.

"I don't know – all I know is that I got there was blood, and my head hurt and that was it. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, dear, it's alright."

She doesn't know how long Pomfrey spends trying to find the right things to put on her head to stop whatever the hell is happening, but it doesn't take very long. She's feeling way better in a matter of seconds, her head still throbs painfully, but she can _see_ , finally, and she's pretty sure her brain has started functioning properly again.

So, all in all, Pomfrey works wonders very quickly. Unfortunately, it's not long enough for her to be gone once the Pratty Bunch actually shows up.

She knows because she hears Sirius yelling threats at them as they come in. She has to lean sideways and a little forward to look at what's going on. Pomfrey gets up in a matter of seconds – she's _definitely_ very quick – and goes to look at what's happening. Sirius Black doesn't care about her splitting headache, about the fact that Pomfrey is _right there_ , or that there are probably other sick students in need of a good rest. He will absolutely yell profanities in the Hospital Wing, no matter what it may cost him in the end.

"Fucking wankers! You fighting girls, now you bloody fucking cowards? If you want a proper fist-fight, mate, I'll give you one alright!"

"Mister Black! Go and sit down right now! I don't need a scene! This is a place for sick people! Do not disturb their rest! Go! Now!"

Lily can see her push Sirius away from the group of Slytherins who has just come in. He's coming back towards her and Lily is getting up from the bed where Pomfrey had been tending to her wounds.

"We should go, I think, I'm feeling better," she tells him, her tone slightly awkward. He looks very angry, which sort of scares her because he has this intense look in his eyes she's never seen before. He's always so cocky and happy and joyful and the sharp contrast takes her slightly aback. "Come on," she tells him, grabbing him by the sleeve of his robes, and they leave the Hospital Wing in a hurry.

"I'll bloody fucking wreck his face," he grumbles, once they're out the doors. "Oh, wait 'till Prongs hears about this. That's gonna be something else alright."

"What the hell is a _Prongs_?"

James Potter had had a very quick lunch, he'd been feeling too sulky, still, to enjoy the food and the friends that came along with being in the Great Hall. Lily wasn't even there anyway, and what was the point of sulking if he couldn't stare at her longingly whilst doing so? He'd gone back to his dorm, leaving Sirius and the rest of the group downstairs. Lily's friends had come to eat pretty soon after they'd been – rudely and unjustly – kicked out of the Library, but she wasn't with them. He'd been sure she'd been headed towards the Great Hall, and now he had no idea where she actually was. So, he'd gone upstairs, both to sulk and to grab one of his – _theirs_ – most treasured possessions: the Marauder's Map. He wanted to know what had happened to her, and if need be, he'd go find her on his own before the Transfiguration O.W.L., but little did he know that he'd not made it to the third floor before the girl he'd been looking for had barged into the Great Hall, covered in blood, shaking and looking as pale as ghost. He had no way to know, either, that most of her friends had left the Great Hall too, trying to figure out where she was, and that this meant that it was his very best friend, Sirius Black who'd brought her to the Hospital Wing.

So, by time he'd actually made it up to his 5th year dorm – after having had a longer-than-planned chat with Benjy Fenwick in the common room, who's been trying to have a chat with him about their Quidditch strategy for next year for the past few weeks – James Potter finds himself staring at the map with a confused look on his face.

Why in Merlin's pants are Lily and Sirius in the Hospital Wing? Why the hell are the Slytherin dolts heading towards them too? He can see them quite clearly, the three little dots with the names Yaxley, Mulciber and Snape in the Hospital Tower, they're getting close.

So, James grabs the map, his bag and wand and bolts towards the Fourth Floor, where he knows there's a staircase that leads directly towards the Hospital Wing. He'll be there in under five minutes if the stairs are feeling generous today.

And so he runs, bumps into passer-bys and mumbles quick, unintelligible excuses to them, and only stops running once, when he has to wait for the stairs to align. He doesn't even stop running when Peeves tries to taunt him to get him to pay attention to him. He'd do it any other day, he'd have a laugh with the Poltergeist, play a prank on him or plan one with him. But not today.

"Ohhh, where's little Potty going in such a hurry?" Peeves jeers, floating, _looming_ , ominously overhead as he throws what looks like fresh dungbombs at shrieking students.

James has half a heart to sigh. He's probably managed to break into Filch's office again.

"Not now, Peeves!" he just yells as he tries to avoid Peeves' arsenal of dungbombs, he manages to dodge them all as he heads into a side corridor.

The first sign of them he gets is her laugh. She's laughing, this is good. He feels relief wash over him, from head to toe, and he slows down. He's breathing hard, his sides hurt and his lungs feel cold. He should run more often, he's clearly out of shape.

The relief doesn't last very long, though, because once he sees her, he almost faints. She is covered in blood, her jaw, lips, throat, brows, clothes, hands, every bit of skin that isn't covered has blood on it. His eyes go wide, he opens and closes his mouth, he wants to say something, but somehow his brain doesn't find the proper words.

"Oh hey, mate, we were just talking about you!"

"What's happened?" is all he manages to croak out. He wants to run to her, to hold her face in his hands, to caress her skin, to make sure she's okay and to hold her close. He takes a step towards her, feels his arm threatening to extend to try and hug her, but he stops himself before he manages to embarrass himself in front of her. She doesn't want him, she's made that very clear to him yesterday. And yet, he yearns and worries. He avoids another embarrassing situation by shoving his traitor of a hand into his decidedly untameable hair, and he uses the other one to shove the map in his pocket.

"Well, err, fuck you're gonna be mad. I'm pissed off, already. I mean, shit..."

"Are you okay, Evans?" His voice is weak, his eyes are frantically searching for clues about what's happened to her. Sirius is not of much help, right now. His heart is beating way faster than it should, and James doesn't know whether it's because he ran all the way towards here or because he's so worried his heart might give out.

"Oh, don't pretend you worry that much, Potter," she says with a huff, and rolls her eyes.

"Oh, come of it, Evans, you were defending his honour, earlier," interrupts Sirius, who nudges her with his elbow, before flashing a grin at her.

This is surreal. He's probably asleep right now. How and why in Merlin's sodding socks are Sirius Black and Lily Evans being… Friendly? Why the hell aren't they answering him? What the fuck happened to her? He can hear the furious beat of his heart, it just won't stop pounding against his ribs. He thinks they might hear it too.

"Oh, I told you that, didn't I? Yeah, that was my bad. Head injury-related issues, you know. Thanks again, by the way, for not leaving me to die in a corner."

"What's happened?" James finds himself repeating himself, he really, really has to know. This is driving him insane. "Why are you covered in blood?"

"Yaxley fucking punched her."

Lily groans at the words. It takes him a second to register the sentence. And then...

"WHAT?" he yells, he cannot even really believe the words he's just heard.

"See, I told you it'd drive him spare," Sirius tells Lily with a smirk, and she smiles weakly at him, she's so pale, and there's so much blood on her. How the hell are they not angrier? What the bloody hell is happening?

"WHERE IS HE?" James roars, he's already heading towards the Hospital Wing, fuck it, he's just going to have to kill the bastard in there. "IS HE IN THERE? I'LL FUCKING..."

"Prongs, mate, alright calm down."

But the doors to the Hospital Wing open, and oh, dear Merlin, if he's not ready to fucking pounce right now.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 : Thunder Strikes and Transfiguration Sorrows**

There's thunder building in his chest, he can swear it. He can feel it. He can hear the wind and the rain and the terrifying rumble of electricity. It's right there, beating hard against his ribs. There's this coiling tension in his stomach, it's begging for release. There's lightning in his eyes, too. He's never known how to control his own temper. His anger is quick and acts faster than he can think. Right now, anger wants him to bloody fucking pummel Yaxley's face – to the point Pomfrey won't even be able to salvage his features and his own mother won't even recognize him. There are other people, but he doesn't even have time to acknowledge their existence. They're just blurs in the background. They don't exist. Right now, there's only him, thunder and Yaxley. Anger is quick. Too quick. So, before he even has time to register what he's doing, James is halfway across the corridor and Sirius yells something after him. He has no idea what Sirius says, he's too far gone, now, Anger has taken over everything in him. He takes a few hasty steps, they've barely even had time to figure out he's coming towards them before he snaps.

The low, menacing rumble turns to cracking thunderbolts in a matter of seconds, and BAM goes his fist. There's no need for wands, then. So, he drops it in his pocket with his free hand. He's too quick, Yaxley hasn't even realized what's just happened to him that his fist comes crashing against his cheekbone once more.

"That's for what you did to Evans you fucking prick!" James hears himself scream. His fist hurts like hell, his bones ache and his skin is turning an angry, irritated red already. But it doesn't matter. It's not enough. The pain is nothing.

The bastard stumbles backwards and falls over and he's about to plunge to follow him and pummel him into the sodding ground when someone lunges at him and tries to hit him. That's when he realizes Mulciber is here too. Except Mulciber's fist never quite reaches his face before Padfoot throws a hex at him and makes him fall to the ground. He's about to turn around to have a go at Mulciber when Sirius calls his name.

Yaxley has managed to stand back up and he's throwing curses, hexes, some of which he doesn't even recognize at Sirius, who has cast a Shield Charm which seems to be dangerously dwindling. So, he pulls out his wand once more, bloody damn throws an Engorgement Charm towards his head, which earns him a well-deserved girlish scream – which, in turn, makes him smirk contentedly. Yaxley's head is so swollen he can't even see his eyes. Good. He's about to run towards Sirius to make sure he's okay when he hears a loud grunt and turns around to check it out.

That's when Mulciber grabs him from behind and tries to strangle him.

"Not so tough now, aren't you?" he sneers in his ear. "Can't very well defend the fucking Mudblood now, can you? Don't worry, we'll take good care of her, one of these days. I promise. I'll have her all to myself."

James starts thrashing about to try to free himself from Mulciber's grasp. He only wants freedom because he's ready to kill him. That's all he wants. Fuck going to Azkaban, it'll be worth it.

James manages to elbow that sodding git right in the ribs and shoves the wanker off, before he's kicking him in the shins, which makes him fall down. There's blood on Mulciber's brown suede shoes. It's probably Lily's. It makes James want to throw up.

"You fucking stay away from her you piece of shit! You hear me? YOU HEAR ME?"

Mulciber throws a Trip Jinx at him, and he falls, pathetically so, onto the ground. Mulciber manages to get up before he can and kicks him in the stomach. He groans in pain, bends over on his side. He clenches his eyes, expects a second kick, a punch, a curse, something, anything, but nothing happens. He waits a little, opens up one of his eyelids, keeping one of them closed for safety reasons, and... Nothing. Mulciber's gone. So he struggles to his knees and then to his feet. His ribs hurt like hell. He adjusts his glasses, scans the room quickly. Mulciber is a good fifteen feet away from him, stuck to the wall.

He's yelling and thrashing, his feet kicking around, hitting the stone behind him. But his arms can't move, they're glued to the wall in a strange position, holding him up. James sort of wishes his face was glued sideways so that he'd look exactly like one of those Egyptian murals he's seen in the History books in his father's library.

"All this for a fucking Mudblood? A fucking Mudblood! You fucking useless Blood-Traitors! I hope you're passing that _whore_ around the common room, at least. Is she a good shag? Yeah, is that it?Fucking waste otherwise... Fucking... Fuck! Let me down you low-life scum! I'll kill you! I'll kill you all!"

Was he really angry before? It doesn't seem like it any more. _This_ is what Anger feels like. This is not thunder, it's a bloody hurricane. James wants to rip him to shreds. But he doesn't have time to act on it, no matter how quick it is. Mulciber gets released, somehow, he doesn't know how, nothing makes sense any more. And then Sirius is defending himself again. He's about to run to him when there's a loud creaking noise.

He hears a scream, too – a woman is screaming in the distance – and he's quite sure it's not Lily. He'd recognize her voice anywhere.

Normally, he wouldn't let this distract him, he'd get right back to the punching and hexing, but _she_ is here. So, he glances back at her, to make sure she's okay, and she's close to the corridor's wall on the left-side, almost hidden out of sight, far away from the bastards. She's safe, presently unharmed, although she's still covered in blood and the sight of her makes his blood boil with newly found strength.

She is already looking at him, still half hidden against the wall, but her wand is drawn out, and her hand is visibly shaking – and maybe he's crazy, maybe his brain is playing tricks on him but – she's got this look in her eyes... Is it what he thinks it is? No, it can't be. No, not after yesterday. He's delusional. He sneaks a grin her way before Mulciber's fist collides against his chin and he puts his wand in his pocket, and punches him right on the nose. He's about to bloody murder him in this very corridor when Sirius calls for him once more.

"Prongs, watch out!"

But he doesn't have time to watch out because that's when he feels himself being lifted from the ground by the ankle and suddenly his body is upside down and he's hanging like a bloody air-dried ham in a cellar. He can feel his glasses sliding up his face and down towards the ground, they're gonna fall down and he's gonna be blind as a bat. The same spell he used just yesterday. He knows who did this, he knows whom he learnt the spell from.

Snivellus has done it again. One of these days, he's going to end up having to kill the bastard or be killed by him. This is how these things end. He's heard about it in the few History of Magic classes where he actually listened to what Binns was talking about – something about great wizards and even greater battles and mortal enemies always drew him in. Childhood rivalries spiralling out of control, and then like Grindelwald and Dumbledore, they would duel until one of them was utterly defeated. And, as fate would have it, evil would be defeated once more. This is how it always ended.

But there he is, dangling from his left ankle in front of his sworn enemy, possibly at his mercy. He hadn't even realized The Oily Prat was here too until his world literally turned upside down and he'd recognized the tell-tale spell.

There's a flash of light that crosses the corridor, then someone shouts again – or maybe screams in pain, he doesn't know – his blood is rushing towards his head and all he can hear is his heartbeat pulsing in his veins. James starts grasping for his wand in his pocket, he bloody hopes to Merlin he gets to it before someone gets him and he can't even defend himself.

Turns out the woman who was shouting is Pomfrey, who has come out of her sanctuary to make them stop making so much noise. She's threatening them with detentions and docked points, but it doesn't seem to deter the wannabe Death-Eaters, who are still yelling, from what he can gather. No one has managed to hit him with a spell yet and he's wondering what the hell made Snape stop. His wand is falling down, or up, he's not so sure anymore, and he barely has time to grab it with his fingertips. He'd sigh, if he weren't still so damn worried. So, he frees himself, lands on his left side – ouch – and groans. He's struggling to get air into his lungs, but it's fine, it's just the shock of the crash into the cold, hard stone. That happens from time to time, he's used to it. He finally gets a good look at Pomfrey, she's managed to grab Snape by the collar and she's grabbing him away from the rest of them and she's still yelling, quite angrily.

"I don't know what's wrong with you, but I'm warning Professor Slughorn about all of this, you're coming with me right now! The three of you! Follow me right now! Attacking students in the corridors, really? What's wrong with you? Right outside the Infirmary! Of all places! I am furious!"

Wait... Wait. Wait. Is she saying what he thinks she's saying? Does she really think Sirius and him have done nothing wrong? Are they finally getting what they deserve? Victory surges through his veins, soars and explodes into fiery, shinny, chaotic hope. At last.

"They started it! Potter punched me first! Potter is the one who attacked me! Look at my face!"

"Hey!" James complains, but really, Yaxley's right. His luck is probably running out, so soon, though, that's too bad.

"You think I'm just going to believe you?" she says disapprovingly, before she turns her head towards him and his stomach sinks. "Mister Potter, did you punch Mister Yaxley?" she's got this highly dubious look on her face and James feels a nervous pang in his stomach because she trusts him and she shouldn't.

He lets none of this show, though, because if there's one thing he's learnt at Hogwarts it's how to avoid unnecessary detentions.

"Of course not! I was just joining up with Sirius and Evans when they came out of the Hospital Wing when he tried to punch me!"

This is undignified. This is wrong. His father would scorn at him so badly for this. Guilt. Guilt is everywhere now. He clenches his jaw, swallows hard. Guilt's in his throat. He deserves this, but whatever, they deserve it more than he ever will.

"He's lying! He's lying! Tell her, Severus!"

"He's lying, Madame, I saw him punch Yaxley."

James wants to punch Snape right now. That would be quite the pleasant experience. He ought to try it someday. So does Sirius, apparently because he makes a show of taking a step towards him and growling, and James grabs him by the shoulder to stop him from doing something stupid. Pomfrey looks completely exasperated, right now.

"Miss Evans," she calls out, "you were here, weren't you? Did you see what happened? You're a Prefect, I will refer to your judgement in the matter."

She's going to tell the truth, he's going to get caught. Anger and Guilt were better than this sinking sensation he's feeling right now. Is this Despair? Maybe? Wait, yes, definitely. Oh, not again. He thought he'd been through with this after the morning he's just had. Bloody hell.

He doesn't look at Lily, he can't bear to see her face right now. She must hate his guts for lying and getting her involved in this somehow.

"Yaxley attacked him first. That's what I saw. When Potter tried to defend himself, Mulciber joined in, that's when Black tried to stop him from attacking Potter."

His heart is about to give out, it's beating way too fast. This is insane. This makes no sense. What the hell is happening? She's lying for him. She's saving his ass, right now. His eyes look for hers instinctively, and his whole body tenses from the restraint he has to exert. He can't go to her, but bloody hell if he doesn't want to kiss her right now. She's the best damn thing that's ever happened to him.

She doesn't look at him, just stares innocently at Pomfrey, blood still covering her face. This is insane. She continues. "But somehow, Mulciber got to Potter and tried to strangle him, he defended himself, that's all he did. And then, once he'd freed himself, _Snape_..." There's so much hate in that one single word, he sees how her features harden, and she pauses for a second and shakes her head. "But you already saw that. If you need me to testify to Professor Slughorn, I will."

Pomfrey just nods curtly. It's Mulciber who makes the stupid mistake of speaking out, right then.

"She's lying too! Filthy fucking Mud..." he stops himself, but it's too late. Everyone knows what he just wanted to say. He sees it on Pomfrey's face. They're done, now. Pomfrey is a Muggle-Born, if she'd had any inclination to let them out easy before now, it's long gone.

"You three, come with me. Right now." She looks downright furious, with her nostrils flared up like that. He's never seen her this angry, and he should know, he's put her through a lot over the years. They all start making their way towards her, except for Snape, whose dirty collar she still hasn't let go of.

"Insulting Prefects! Assaulting students! You're fifth years, too! You should know better by now! Oh and don't you think I won't tell Professor Dumbledore either, this is unacceptable behaviour! Punching students and throwing curses! And then lying about it! You've got some nerve!" her voice trails behind her as she leads them down the stairs.

He lets out a sigh of relief. "Don't go towards her, you can't go towards her," he thinks. She's too bloody perfect. This is crazy. Why would she lie for him? After yesterday! He doesn't deserve her.

She finally looks at him, and dear Merlin her eyes still have that glint to them and there's Hope again, burning him alive.

"Thank you," she breathes out, and he probably wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't been paying attention.

His insides are doing some kind of dangerous somersaults, and he doesn't know how he's going to survive this. His cheeks are heating up. Is he bloody blushing? What the hell? He can't be blushing, that's ridiculous. He doesn't blush. That's not what blokes do. He ought to get his shit in order. This is bloody embarrassing. Hope is so much worse than everything else. He's so dumbstruck he forgets to answer her, to thank her, to pledge his loyalty to her, he doesn't really know what he ought to be doing right now. Will she accept diamonds from him? He should buy her a gift. He has to find some kind of way to thank her. He'd offer his hand in marriage but he's pretty sure that wouldn't end well.

"Prongs, mate, you alright?" James hears Sirius ask, he's walking towards him, he knows this, but he pays Sirius no mind. This can wait.

"Why?" he croaks out, his throat is dry, which makes it hard to talk. He's still staring at her. That's all he can do, really, because he sure as hell can't move his feet right now.

She looks confused, her brow furrows and she takes a few steps towards him.

"Why what?" she asks him back, her voice is soft, and she darts out her tongue for a second, to lick at her lips. She's nervous too. This is insane.

"Why did you lie to Pomfrey?"

"Oh, that. Er... They deserved it. I couldn't get them punished earlier, when it was just me, they'd have just said I was lying and would have tried to get my badge taken away." She's fidgeting right now, her fingers entangling themselves and twisting around in a strange sort of dance. "But all she saw was them attacking you, and I figured, you know, I could just..."

"Right... Yeah. Okay. Well... Thank you, anyway."

Hope is crushed, bludgeoned to death. Right back to Despair he goes, then.

"Thank your for err, you know, what you did back there," she mumbles right back at him.

"T'was nothing. Really."

She opens her mouth again, but there are footsteps rushing in, and suddenly a large group of girls come swarming in like bees, or even wasps buzzing and humming and all at once he's overwhelmed. Lily's friends are here. One of them screams in horror as she sees the blood covering Lily. They all gather around her and start fussing about, touching her face, lifting her chin, angling it to make sure she's fine.

"Merlin, Lil'! What's happened?"

"Are you okay?"

She breaks eye contact, the tension in his shoulders loosens and he turns his head towards Sirius.

He hears her say, "Yeah I'm fine, Pomfrey healed me. I just need to get cleaned up."

"We should go find Wormtail and Moony, shouldn't we?" he just asks Sirius casually.

And he knows damn well Sirius doesn't buy his act, but he also knows Sirius won't press him any further.

"Yeah, too many screaming girls, they make me nervous. There should never be more than two or three in the same room, it's just chaos otherwise."

"You love chaos, though, don't pretend. I wouldn't be surprised if you were crowned some sort of Viking god of chaos at some point."

Sirius barks out a laugh. "Man, that'd be groovy, wouldn't it?"

"Sirius, please stop with the Muggle words." James groans. This is a new thing of his, he's been doing it all year, but it's gotten so much worse lately.

"Fine, then I guess you don't want me to tell you how Evans totally digs you to the max."

He's wiggling his brows now, mischief and suggestiveness clearly showing on his face. James rolls his eyes at him.

"What the hell does that even mean?"

"She likes you, mate, come on! Keep up, won't ya?"

"Sure, like hell she does. You heard her yesterday, didn't you? Fuck, I was so stupid."

"Yeah, you were. Really, really stupid. But d'you wanna know why Yaxley punched her? She told me all about it earlier."

James sighs. "What?"

"She defended you, that's why he punched her."

He scoffs. "Right. Bugger off, mate."

"I swear to you! She said you owed her her face because she defended your Quidditch talents! I swear on my mother's grave."

"You hate your mother."

"Oh, alright, I swear on _your_ mother's grave."

"Hey!"

They've reached the Entrance Hall, right now, and swiftly head towards the chamber that's right next to the Great Hall. Tobias Stebbins is very clearly glaring at him from the corner he's occupying with his neglected swot of a girlfriend, probably because he's still mad for what happened to Bertram Aubrey. Whatever, the git deserved it. James would absolutely do it again, even if he got detention for it. Fucking Ravenclaws, there's maybe eight or nine of them in the corridor. There isn't a single Gryffindor, apart from Sirius and him, but there are a few Hufflepuffs and a couple Slytherins. They're waiting in front of the doors that lead to the Great Hall for the exam to begin. There's still twenty minutes until the Practical Exam, but people are already gathering up in the small room. He'd be making fun of them right now, but he's – unfortunately – one of them.

They wait in partial silence. Sometimes, Sirius points out something weird he finds about the people in the chamber, like how Stebbins' girlfriend... Err, he thinks her name is Florence, but isn't sure, sort of looks like she got smashed in the head with a Bludger one too many times. And maybe it's rude, but it's accurate, and so he laughs.

"Well, you're here early," says Remus as he comes in and approaches the both of them, with Peter trailing behind him.

"Yeah, we were looking for the both of you. Figured you'd be here, you know, to keep up the bloody teacher's pet charade," replies Sirius as he folds his arms over his chest and raises one eyebrow. He's taunting him, trying to provoke him. He's silently begging Sirius, and he throws him a pointed look. Not again. He won't go through this again.

But Remus just rolls his eyes, clearly not in the mood to fight pointlessly with Sirius.

"Where were you?" inquires Peter, who looks flushed, like he ran all the way over here.

"Got into a fight with Yaxley, Snivellus and Mulciberk," James replies with a proud smile. He ruffles his hair, makes a show of feigning disinterest. It makes him look cooler.

"Fuck that's a good one," comments Sirius approvingly.

"I know, it just came to me."

"What happened?" Remus looks worried, of course he is. He's been wary of the Slytherins ever since Snape found out he was a werewolf.

"They attacked Evans, haven't you heard, by now? The whole Great Hall saw her at lunch. Surely, someone must have told you," Sirius says, uncrossing his arms and pushing himself off the wall.

"That was Evans? Fuck. I heard someone came barging into the Great Hall covered in blood but I didn't know."

"I heard Bertha Jorkins talking about it earlier," Peter points out.

"What did that awful cow have to say about this?" James groans. That girl is just awful, he's so glad she's graduating this year because she's a nightmare, a gossip and a liar. There's a reason Sirius calls her Jerkins.

"She said there was a madwoman covered in blood who wanted to eat ice-cream. It didn't make sense, I think she was lying," Peter says, but he looks flustered, like he doesn't want to answer. His voice gets higher than normal and he squeaks, that's how James knows he's nervous.

"Oh no, she wanted ice-cream, she didn't even want to go to the Hospital Wing... Hey Evans! Why did you want ice-cream so bad earlier?"

Lily Evans is startled, a doe in the headlights kind of startled. So, she stops moving altogether. That's what the stupid animals do when they're afraid. They stare, too, stupid wide-eyed dumb creatures. That's what she's doing right now, she can't really help it though. She really is taken aback. This is completely... Cuckoo? Loony? Daffy? Wacky? Seconds have passed, or maybe hours, she's never quite certain. She's still staring. There's this clench in her chest, in her guts, in her throat. And she cannot move an inch.

She had seen _him_ run towards the damn gits, foolishly, recklessly. That's what he was, after all, a foolish, reckless boy. But still, he'd cared enough, about her, about the world, about what the monsters were planning to do. He cared. He really did. He'd been enraged, really, punching Yaxley square in the face, defending her. It was stupid, and maybe he hadn't really done it to defend her. Maybe he was just using her as a way to justify yet another attack on the Slytherins. But she didn't mind. Not today. Not any more. But still, she'd thought he was just pretending. That was until she'd heard him yell at Mulciber."You fucking stay away from her you piece of shit! You hear me? YOU HEAR ME?" he'd bellowed, and she'd felt goosebumps spreading all over her lower back, reaching her hips and thighs. This was terrifying. There had been so many raw feelings, so much _truth_ in his voice. He had really meant it, it had been plainly obvious. She'd been startled, thrown off. This wasn't usual. This wasn't typical. This wasn't good at all.

How much could a careless, self-absorbed, arrogant, happy-go-lucky fifteen year-old really mean such words anyway? Surely, not as much as her stupid, _stupid_ mind thought he did. None of it made sense. Her brain had been reeling, it still was.

And then Mulciber had kicked him down, and she had had to act. Sure, she'd been startled and she'd been terrified, but James Potter didn't deserve to be kicked by some teenage monster whose breath smelled of fresh dungbombs. No one did, really. So, she'd thrown the first spell that had come to her mind. And sure, her hands were shaking, and she hadn't managed to stick him all the way to the wall, but Mulciber was still incapacitated. That was all that mattered.

And then Se... _Snape_ had to get involved. He'd been lurking in the background, much like she'd been doing, up until that point. He had seen her defend Potter. That's why he'd acted. How utterly predictable of him. His one weakness. His dumb, childish, petty jealousy of James Potter. He thought she was in love with Potter. He thought Potter was in love with her. It was completely ridiculous, of course, she barely knew Potter, she'd never even had a proper conversation with him that didn't involve classes or the detentions she was giving him. _He_ deserved to see this, then. He'd chosen them over her. She'd gladly choose to defend James Potter over him any day now. Just to rub it in his face.

So, the dumb, conceited prat had thrown the one damn spell he always threw and Potter had ended up upside down. How many times had she witnessed that scene? Except this time she hadn't sat iddly by. This was too late, there was no turning back now.

He had been watching her. And she had pointed her wand towards him. Daring him. Her gaze had been stone cold, unbulging. "Try me," she'd wanted to tell him. "Try and make a move." But she hadn't even had to say a word, Snape had lowered his wand a few seconds later.

And then, he'd backed down, the fucking coward had backed down. He'd been slowly walking backwards towards the doors of the Hospital Wing when Pomfrey had gotten a hold of him.

And then, because this hadn't been quite crazy enough, Pomfrey had asked her to say what had happened. And she couldn't tell the truth.

She hadn't even wanted to tell the truth. She hadn't even _tried_ to. The lie had come so easily, so fluidly out of her mouth. And Pomfrey had gone away with the Slytherins and...

Well, there she is now. Doe in the headlights.

This isn't good.

"Thank you," she barely hears herself mutter. He probably doesn't hear it. Black says something, she doesn't register the words, Potter doesn't seem to do so either, because he's staring at her, clearly puzzled. He's frowning, he looks tense, his cheeks look flushed. Is he mad at her? Why the hell is he mad at her?

"Why?" he just asks her, his voice tight. He sounds like he's mad at her. What has she done that was wrong? Shouldn't she have lied for him? Is that why he's mad? That's nonsensical. This entire situation is way too confusing for her. He's making her nervous.

"Why what?" she asks him back, unsure what he meant.

"Why did you lie to Pomfrey?"

What? Why does he care about that? She can't answer it, not truthfully, because she doesn't know the answer to that question herself. So, she tells him the only thing that makes sense. She wanted them to be punished, that was the perfect opportunity, blah, blah, _blargh_. She doesn't even buy her own words. He probably doesn't either. No one in their right mind would. He still looks like he's mad at her, or maybe he's just upset. Bloody hell, he knows she lied, doesn't he?

He mutters some kind of unintelligible thanks. He definitely knows she's just lied to him and is upset about it.

"Thank your for err, you know, what you did back there," she tries to say, but her words are a tangled, blurry mess of vowels and harsh sounds. He seems to have understood her anyway.

"T'was nothing. Really," he just answers. Because he's terribly mad at her. He defended her, and she just lied to him, of course he's mad at her.

She's about to apologize when Marlene McKinnon – a sixth-year Gryffindor girl – walks over, followed by half a dozen of Lily's friends. She stops staring at him, which is something of an improvement. She was about to embarrass herself, clearly. The girls are all asking Lily how she's feeling, why she's got so much blood on her, if it's her blood... Lily has trouble understanding them all, their words of concern blending together in a blur of voices.

"Yeah I'm fine, Pomfrey healed me. I just need to get cleaned up," she says, trying to make them stop fussing over her. But this is only making things worse for her. She's given them a mission.

"Oh, we need to get you cleaned up before the Transfiguration exam! How long do we have?"

"Thirty minutes. It's fine, we can definitely manage that. Have you eaten, hon?" Dorcas asks her.

"No, I'm not hungry."

"You still need to eat something," Dorcas asserts.

And soon enough, Lily finds herself in a crowded bathroom, with four girls yelling at one another to get the spells coordinated as the fifth one, Mary, has been sent on an emergency food run.

"Hey, Wang! WANG! Come over here!"

"Oh, we're calling ourselves by our last names, now, _Fletcher_? That's rude."

"Oh, alright, Jane. Please come over, you're better at cleaning spells than I am."

Lily can hear Jane huffing from her position, next to the entrance door of the bathroom. Her role is to prevent other people from coming in. They've been in here for five minutes already and she's yelled at three different girls already.

"Are you still mad at me?" asks Lily in a hushed voice. "Dahlia, are you..."

"No, I'm not. I'm sorry."

"What? You're sorry? Why are you sorry? I'm the one who's supposed to apologize. It was so mean of me. I shouldn't have said what I said. And it's not even true, Dali."

"You were right, though. You were."

And then Jane is near them and it feels terribly awkward to continue their conversation in front of someone else.

"Right, Jane, do your best, won't you? We don't want the Transfiguration examinators to think she's a nutcase covered in blood, do we? I'll just go yell at twelve year-olds."

"Dorcas! Stop peeing!" Jane yells, her mouth mere inches away from Lily's ear. "I need help! Do you know a spell that can clean blood off a shirt?"

Jane is pinching at the fabric of her shirt, twisting it, pulling it to the sides, trying to examine it like some sort of unknown creature.

"Can't you wait a second? I'll be here in a minute, alright?"

"Oh, come on! You can pee later!"

"It's alright, Jane, really," Lily starts. "I gotta clean my face anyway. Scourgifies can only do so much, they never quite feel the same as good old water, you know?"

Jane mumbles and lets go of her shirt sleeve, and Lily walks over the sinks, where Marlene is perched up, legs crossed elegantly as she reads some kind of magazine.

In the end, Lily barely has time to scrub at her face, to try and freshen up, she feels icky, sweaty, sticky and just generally gross. She needs a shower, or even a bath. She'll go take one in the Prefect's Bathroom tonight. Or maybe even sooner, right after the Transfiguration exam. That sounds great. That's the plan, then, get through this hellish afternoon, then take a two-hour bath, go get dinner, and then head straight to bed right after that. That's how she's going to end the day. It has to end this way.

Marlene gets off the sinks, investigates the stalls and bangs on Dorcas' door until the snaps and yells at her. "I can't pee with you all bothering me every two seconds, you creeps! Stop it!" But she eventually gets out of the stall, washes her hands right next to Lily and, once she's done, flicks her slightly wet hands towards her. Lily shrieks a little, even though she's already a mess and _water_ isn't going to make anything worse at this point. But the water's cold, and that's reason enough to shriek.

"Oh, quiet, you big baby. Alright, come over here, come on. We don't have all day," she tells Lily as she grabs her by the hips to rotate her torso towards her. She aims her wand towards her sullied shirt and does her best. It works fairly well, there's the faintest hint of a stain near one of her cuffs, but other than that, it's pristinely white.

"Hey, McKinnon, whatcha doing in there?"

"I'm reading the graffiti on these stalls. Merlin, people sure do like to fuss about Potter and Black, don't they? This is gross. I'm friends with the blokes, this feels like I'm violating their trust."

"Ooooh, what does it say?" Dahlia asks, stepping a few steps away from the door, craning her head to the side.

"You're such a gossip, Dahlia," Lily snorts.

"I don't know, there's this one here, it says... 'I'd like to be a Snitch just so Potter would catch me'... That doesn't even make sense. He's a Chaser, for Merlin's sake. Does she even go to the Quidditch games? It's not like he's hard to miss! He's the one who marks the most points."

"And it's not even like you can't make an analogy with the Chaser thing. You know, 'I'd like to be a Quaffle so that Potter can just toss me around whenever he likes' – seems more accurate too," Dorcas snorts.

They all start laughing, aside from Marlene McKinnon, whose passion for Quidditch, and respect for her captain, surely prevent her from doing so.

"Now, come on, you're unfair, he doesn't..." Marlene trails, as she pokes her head out of the stall.

"It also works with Beaters, too, if you think about it," Lily says, still giggling. "I'd like to be a Bludger just so Potter could swing a bat at me."

"Now that's more accurate for _the both of you_. Except you're the one with the bat."

"If only I had a bat around, if only," Lily says in a fake dreamy voice. Truth is, she doesn't wish she had a bat. This is just for play. She's just saying these things for the sake of the conversation. It's funnier if she says it than if she just says "well, I don't actually care that much about Potter. I barely know him anyway." So, she pretends like she does. Whatever. This is fun.

"What do the ones about Black say? Come on, they're probably really juicy, he's such a perv," Dorcas says, disgust showing clearly showing on her face.

"Ooooh, Lily and I didn't tell you about what he said to us this morning in the Library did we?" Jane sing-songs gleefully.

Lily just groans at the mere memory of the things he said.

In the end, Mary gets there right on time before they leave the bathroom they've been occupying, with some treats, which, to be fair, are mostly comprised of chocolates and candy. But Lily doesn't complain and dutifully bites off a Chocolate Frog's head before it even has time to take its single hop.

The trip towards the Great Hall is, all in all, pretty uneventful. At least, that's what she likes to pretend. Five different people have, rudely, pointed at her and started talking not-so-hushedly about her as she passed by them, but she just kept on walking. There was this one Hufflepuff kid, that she doesn't even know, who may have asked her why she was covered in blood at lunch. Bertha Jorkins, that rude, mean girl, even has the nerve to ask her if Snape's the one who did this to her because she broke up their engagement yesterday. Dorcas just transfigured her shoes into fish bowls and, once the environing laughter had subsidued, just said: "what? I'm just practicing for my exam." Lily is too astonished by the sheer nerve of that stupid girl to be angry, and so she laughed, along with the others.

And then, when they reach the small chamber that leads to the Great Hall, they find it crowded with people. No one turns to face her, however, and most of the Slytherins aren't here, save for those two girls who never make a fuss. At long last, some peace.

Lily's about to sigh in relief that no one seems to have spotted her, or that they somehow don't care, when Sirius Black calls her name.

"Hey Evans! Why did you want ice-cream so bad earlier?"

What? What the bloody hell is he on about? She gives the girls a look that clearly is meant to say "I'll be back in a second, if not, please tell my parents I love them." But that's just the dramatic side in her talking.

"What are you talking about? Have you gone completely bonkers, Black?" she answers, getting closer and furrowing her brows.

"You know, earlier? When you came into the Great Hall? And I tried to get you to the Hospital Wing? Remember that?"

"Yeah, that I remember. Why the hell would I talk about ice... Oh."

Lily literally feels the rush of blood towards her cheeks, the realisation is humiliating. She doesn't remember talking about it, but she knows why she did. Bloody hell.

Black starts laughing. He's making fun of her because she's blushing quite furiously.

"So, now that you remember, why don't you tell us about it?"

"No thanks."

"Oh come on, Evans, the mystery is killing me here."

"Please die in silence. The rest of us have an exam to get to."

"Snarky."

"Bugger off, Black."

"Oh, come on, Evans! Look at you, you're all cleaned up, now, you got nothing to be ashamed of. Right? We were having so much fun."

"Don't make me glue your lips together, Black. You know I could."

"Alright, I'm sorry. Merlin, pass me some of that chocolate, won't you?"

She sighs and hands him of Honeyduke's milk chocolate bars, the good ones, with almonds in them.

She's been feeling – er, not friendly per say – but _friendlier_ towards them both for defending her. Sure, they'd been stupid and had gotten into a pointless fight. But Potter had looked so enraged, so outraged on her behalf and it had made her feel... Well, she still doesn't really know how that makes her feel.

She's surprised is all. Or, rather, she had been surprised. Well, Black is still a prat, but a somewhat endearing one. And as for Potter... Well, Potter hasn't said a word yet, she ponders, he's not even looking at her. He's mad at her for lying. And that's her fault. Not his. She can't really blame him for that, now, can she? It'd be easier to blame him, to be mad at him for getting into a fight and it would prove her right, but it would be unfair. She hates unfairness.

Her emerging dilemma is cut short when the doors of the Great Hall are opened and everyone just starts moving to get closer to it and she has to move to avoid getting trampled to death. Black is going to be one of the first ones to leave, so he won't have time to bother her again.

"And this is where I leave you, young ones," calls Marlene quite loudly from behind her. "Alas, my lack of youth prevents me from joigning you in this delightful event. Let me assure you of my disappointment. I shall miss you all so terribly. Bye bye, now!"

Lily manages to turn around to wave at her before someone starts to call out names. Doom is overwhelming her senses. She's gripping her wand tightly and repeating incantations in her head. Alright, she just needs to keep her calm. Professor McGonagall calls her name, among a sea of others, Dahlia's hand holds hers for a second, and she smiles warmly as they enter the room.

"Professor Bagshot is free, dear," Professor McGonagall tells her.

Lily nods and lets go of Dahlia's hand. "Good luck, Dali," she murmurs with one last smile, before turning away.

Professor Bagshot hasn't actually been a Professor in years, decades even. She looks like she's about a hundred years-old. But she seems nice, she was the one who examined her Potions O.W.L.S. too, and so Lily smiles at her as she approaches.

"Oh, Miss Evans, you again. How delightful!"

"I hope you're not bored of me yet!"

"Oh, no no, dear, I couldn't. Professor Slughorn talks so highly of you, and for good reason!"

Lily smiles at her once more. One of these days, Professor Slughorn is going to get her in so much trouble with his exaggerations. Someone is bound to find out he just has a soft spot for her and she's not quite as heavenly magnificent as he makes her seem.

"So, dear, could you vanish this iguana right here and then make it reappear?"

"Sure," Lily says, rolling up her sleeves.

She's been doing this all morning. This is easy. Alright, alright. She just needs to breathe.

The iguana's gone in a matter of seconds, and when she makes it reappear, she's almost too afraid to look at it to check if it's still intact.

"Oh, that was perfect, dear! Brilliant work, Miss Evans."

Lily's cheeks redden with glee, and she's still beaming when she leaves the room. Dahlia is already outside, and Lily hugs her tightly when she sees her.

"Oh, someone is in a way better mood now!" Sirius Black calls from the left side of the Entrance Hall.

Lily just groans, shuts her eyes as tightly as possible and holds onto Dahlia.

"If we just ignore him and stay like this, do you think he'll leave us alone?" she asks her, still refusing to open her eyes.

"I doubt it. He's very persistent. I should know, I let him take me on a date to Hogsmeade last year. Worst decision of my entire life."

"I can hear you, you know."

"Good, you ought to learn how to behave on a date, Black."

"Are you trying to ask me out?"

"No!" Dahlia yelps as she lets go of Lily in her anger.

Lily is forced to open her eyes, which is devastating, really. This is terribly unfair, she was quite enjoying her nice, warm hug.

Bloody, useless, prattish Sirius Black who ruins her one moment of happiness of the day.

"You're insufferable, you know that?" Dahlia snaps at him.

"I've been told a couple of times, yes. I mean, mostly by my mother, but yes, I've been told."

"And yet, here you are."

"Oh, don't be like that, Fletcher."

Remus and Mary come out the doors before Dahlia has time to murder Sirius Black right on the spot.

"How did you do, then?" Dahlia asks them as they walk over.

"I did alright, I guess," Mary shrugs.

"Transfiguration isn't my best subject, but I think it was alright. I didn't get yelled at. So, that was that, at least."

"Oh come off it, Remus, you're great at Transfiguration!" Lily says, putting one of her hands on his shoulder. He's taller than her, and she has to tilt her head back a little to look him in the eyes.

"Yeah, you're good at transforming things, aren't you?" Black says mischieviously.

"Black, if it's another one of your creepy innuendos, please just go stand in that corner over there."

He scoffs, but he at least has the decency to shut up. One by one, the rest of the class comes out the doors.

Potter and his friend Peter are one of the last ones to come out. Potter doesn't look at her.

She'd like to say something but there aren't any words. She should apologize, but doing so in front of the rest of the class seems inappropriate.

She turns her gaze away, and awaits in silence for the written exam to begin. She nods along when her friends talk, dutiful mumbles "yeah" when someone mentions her name directly, but she doesn't really know what is being said.

The doors to the Great Hall open once more and Professor McGonagall makes her speech about cheating spells as they all settle into their seats. Lily's exhausted.

Her lack of sleep from the night before seems to have caught up with her. Maybe it's the fight, the nerves caused by the exams, her emotional troubles, but she's suddenly very tired.

She lets out a yawn, grabs her quills and ink and awaits for the parchment to appear on her single desk. It does so after a few seemingly eternal seconds, and she gets to work. The questions on switching spells and vanishing spells are easy, but there's one on untransfiguration spells, and she's not certain she's mentionned _all_ the "necessary information one needs to consider to insure that the reversal to the original state of the animal, or the object, in question will be safely executed". It's a dreadful subject, she hates those spells, anyway.

She finishes her exam early, like she always does, and she's left rereading and re-rereading her answers before the time is finally up.

At last. Her exams are over. She's going to take the longest nap in the history of naps. She might not even wake up until September 1st. She doesn't care much for summer anyway, it's too hot. Sleep will be better. Maybe she can find a spell that will put her into a temporary coma. That would be great.

"Finally!" Mary cries, once they're out the doors and walking up the stairs. "We're finally free!"

"I almost can't believe it, you know. I thought it would never end," Jane replies.

The world seems to have stopped spinning. Lily stops walking altogether to stare at Jane. They're going to jam the foot traffic up the stairs, but she doesn't care. This is too important. Did Jane actually talk to Mary without yelling at her?

They haven't talked in three months. They'd been great friends up until then. The best of friends, even. And then Mary had gotten into a serious relationship and Jane had, quite clearly, felt forgotten by her. She'd pretended like she didn't care, but Lily had known better. Mary and her boyfriend, Paul Harris, didn't actually make a good couple, Lily had figured that much, and so did Jane. So did everyone of their friends, actually. He wanted her all to himself, and Mary was beginning to feel more and more isolated. That had been going on for a few months, until, one day, Mary's boyfriend had dumped her out of the blue. That had made things better, for a few days. Until Mary found out, from friends of friends of Paul that the reason why he had dumped her was because Jane had confronted him and had pretented that Mary had cheated on him.

And then, things had escalated quite drastically. Mary had yelled at her, which had made Jane say some mean, cruel things, which in turn made Mary say some meaner, crueller things. In the end Mary had apparently said something that tore them both apart. Lily didn't know what they'd said to each other, they'd been alone in the dorm and had only told her about it separately once the fight was over. But it was bad. Mary felt somewhat guilty, but not enough to apologize, and Jane's guilt for having broken up Mary's relationship had been considerably lessened by what Mary had said to her.

Dahlia had tried to force it out of the both of them, curiosity driving her crazy, but neither of them had said a word about the matter.

"Did you just talk to me, you ugly tart?"

Oh, for Merlin's sake, not again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's note:** Hey, I just wanted to give you guys a quick warning. There's one line in this chapter that mentions homophobic language, to be quite specific, it's lesbophobic. Let me just say that I absolutely do not condone such language and that I am very much against homophobia and lesbophobia. And if you do not feel comfortable reading this, I completely understand.

* * *

 **Chapter 5: The duality of bathroom brawls**

James Potter hasn't been able to properly look at Lily Evans ever since Hope has been smashed into a thousand different pieces. That is what he considers the opposite of a problem, truly, because he usually does tend to stare at her slightly more than he ought to, really. If he were to try to prove his complete disinterest in the matter – the matter, in this case, being the girl of his dreams – then not staring would certainly help him out in the grand scheme of things. But the thing is, sometimes, fate is cruel and soon enough, he ends up having to try and crane his neck in a desperate attempt to get one single glance of her. It's not his fault, really, it isn't. It's just that something comes up and he definitely cannot avoid doing so. So, here's how it starts.

Their walk of freedom towards their dorm after two weeks of exams should have been a celebration, James ought to have thrown Exploding Confettis in the air, or Dancing Disco Balls, or Boogie Bouncing Balls (he really ought to get to Zonko's soon, he's completely out of those, and it's a terrible tragedy) but, first of all, he hadn't been in the right mindset this morning to plan for that, and second, he just isn't feeling like celebrating right now. So, there. The walk of freedom is a silent march.

Peter and Sirius, who are just behind him, are having a heated debate about what kind of fake wands is the best, while Remus tries to spark up a conversation with him. But James has been sulking for hours now, and so, he mostly groans and nods in lieu of an answer, hoping that Remus will just give up and join in on the debate. Remus asks him a question and when James doesn't answer, he says "James, are you alright?" and James is about to tell him all about the hardships of a broken heart and about how lucky he is that he's never been in love when he comes crashing into Rohit Patel's back and has to apologize for not having seen him. But Patel doesn't bother to take the time to turn around, and James understands why fairly quickly.

There's a fight happening a few meters away from him. He can hear it, mostly, because there's a wall of bodies preventing him from seeing what's happening. But he can hear the voices, and he can definitely hear hers.

"Oh, please, not again! No, no, Mary, don't. Jane, stay over there."

"I am so done with you, Wang. Who do you think you are, anyway, huh? You think you're allowed to talk to me? You don't deserve to! Not after what you've done."

"Well, there you go again! I can't believe I ever... I just – you repulse me, MacDonald."

"The feeling's mutual, you stupid cow."

There's a shriek, and then another voice starts to scream. Lily yells "stop it!" but the shrieks continue. He can feel people starting to push him forward, sideways, he feels like a bloody shrunken head, there's a shift in the crowd, and he can feel his arm get crushed against the railing again.

"Hey! Move, damn it! You're blocking the stairs! I need to go!" a voice screams from behind him as he has to apologize to someone for knocking his forehead against their shoulder. This is getting suffocating.

"Who do you think you are?" screams another voice, loudly and angrily.

"I'm the Head Boy! Let me through!"

"Oh, fuck's sake Walters, cool it, won't you?" Sirius says, voicing James' own thoughts. "You're gonna send someone over the railings!"

"Oh damn it, we're moving again! Hey! You! You, over there! Blonde one! Yeah, you! Fuck off, won't you? Some of us have things to do! I have an exam tomorrow! I need to get to the library!"

"No one cares, Aubrey! I need to go because my girlfriend is waiting for me, you don't see me making a fuss about it, do you?"

People are really starting to get agitated now, he can feel people pushing him again, and he spots Rafe Walters half a dozen steps in front of him. He's not really useful most of the time, but maybe this once he'll break off whatever fight is happening between Lily's friends.

"I'm so tired of the two of you fighting like this! This has gone too far! I've had it! I can't take it any more!" Another voice screams, and he's pretty sure it's Dahlia, from his previous investigating this morning.

"She's right! Stop it! The both of you! Mary, what the hell is wrong with... Oww! What the hell?"

"Oh, shit, I'm sorry! I'm so so sorry! Are you hurt?"

"What do you think? Of course I'm hurt!"

That's when James realizes that Rafe Walters must have managed to make his way up the stairs because James can clearly hear him yelling angry threats. And James tries, desperately so, to get a look at _her_. He barely gets a glimpse of her hair before he has to steady himself to avoid falling overboard. This staircase is way too dangerous for a school.

"Stop it now! Stop it or you're all getting detentions!"

"We've already stopped," a feminine voice points out, James doesn't know which of Lily's friends it is, but it's certainly either Wang or MacDonald.

"Shit Lily, tell me you're alright?" another voice asks, and James' stomach tightens at the possibility of Lily being hurt again. That's twice in the same day. Three in two days. And alright, maybe yesterday wasn't physical pain, but it certainly _did_ hurt her. Oh, bloody hell, here's Guilt again, James thinks. His throat is tight, and he can't help but try and shove his hand into his hair, even if the limitation of space restricts his movement quite a lot and his elbow knocks onto the hard rock of the railing.

People start shouting again. James can hear a mix of "Move!", "Can someone just shove them off the stairs already?" and "Fuck off! I've got places to be!" and he sighs, lowers his hand and closes his eyes for a second.

"Did you just assault a prefect?" Walters questions in a semi-authoritative voice.

He's not the worst Head Boy they've ever had, but he's definitely not the _best_. James doesn't know much about authority or Head Boy-ship but he knows that, on the off-chance that he would ever end up becoming one, he'd be ten times better at it than Walters. For starters, he wouldn't be such a pompous prat. And he'd definitely not wear that stupid badge all the time. That's just ridiculous. Walters wears it on his Muggle clothes, even when they're at Hogsmeade, and he always looks like an idiot. James certainly would never do that. He'd be a brilliant Head Boy, for sure.

"What? No I didn't! It was an accident! Tell him, Lily!"

James cannot hear Lily's answer properly, but it only takes a few more seconds before the crowd in front of him begins to move forward and he feels himself being pushed up the stairs. Peter screams "finally!" along a few dozen others, and James almost gets knocked off his feet. Sirius grabs him by the arm and saves him from being trampled to death by a horde of impatient 15 year-olds. As they climb their way further and further up the stairs, the crowd begins to dissipate, a few more people leaving at each single level. And, soon enough, they're almost all alone as they reach the staircase that leads to the 7th floor.

Lily isn't anywhere to be seen, not that James cares, or notices. And neither are her friends. But again, that's none of his business, and he obviously does not care about such things.

"Hey, Peter, so, did you settle that fake wands argument, then?" Remus asks, a sly smile on his face.

He knows what he's doing. He's gonna make them have another stupid debate. And he's gonna have a laugh at their expense. Sirius and Peter love their stupid, nonsensical debates. Remus thinks it's fair play to make fun of them. At first, James wasn't so keen on it, but now, after years of having to sit through "cold or hot butterbeer?" (obviously cold), "Yorkshire pudding or treacle sponge pudding?" (treacle sponge, no questions asked, although no one had asked James at the time. Wankers, the lot of them.), "the Gryffindor common room's sofa or one of the armchairs?" (sofa, because it makes lounging easier) and countless other utterly ridiculous topics, James had joined Remus' side of the matter (maybe, partly because they never included him in their debates and that was just plain rude of them).

"It wasn't an argument," Sirius cuts in, rudely interrupting James' inner thought process. "We were just _debating_. There's a very important distinction, there. Arguments are common, banal, _mundane_ , even. Debating requires a certain amount of wit. It's a thing young men in high society elite circles do."

That makes James laugh, because, bloody hell, Sirius is one hell of a pretentious wanker when he wants to be, but he's still his best mate.

"D'you really think they have debates about fake wands? Mate, be realistic," Remus scoffs.

"Oh, yeah, you're right, they're Muggles, aren't they? I mean, most of them are, anyway. They probably have debates about other prank items. Do Muggles have prank shops? I'm sure they do. No one can go by without a prank shop, not even Muggles. Pete, mate, we totally should go visit one this summer."

"You always say that, and then you always forget two minutes later." Peter complains. "What? It's true! Don't look at me like that. You never remember anything you say you're gonna do."

Peter and Sirius end up having another hour-long debate in the common room, while James and Remus play a game of Exploding Snap.

Some of Lily's friends show up after a while, but she doesn't. Not that James cares. He really doesn't. He has better things to think about. Like the fact he's pretty much certain Remus' cards are about to blow up. And they do. Remus barely has time to let go of them before the small explosion can blow his fingers off. His shirt sleeve takes a hit, though, and he ends up smelling of burnt cotton for the rest of the game. Dorcas is the first one, among all of the _other Gryffindors_ (that really is the proper term, he should use this one a lot more often) that makes it in. She's basically stormed into the common room and has headed straight for the stairs. The common room goes still as the noise of her stomping feet going up the stairs echoes around the room.

James throws a questioning look at Remus who just shrugs and looks quite as baffled as he is.

"What's with Meadowes?" Sirius asks, he's managed to stop making faces at Peter long enough .

"Dunno," James answers. "We'll probably learn more at diner."

"What a bunch of gossips you both are," Marlene taunts as she walks up to them.

"Oh please," begins Sirius, stopping his puerile debate with Remus to take the time to roll his eyes at her. "Like you're any better than us."

"I definitely am," she answers evenly, raising her brows at him, daring him to contradict her.

"She definitely is," Remus says.

"Backstabber," Sirius mutters under his breath.

"I heard that!"

"Yeah, and?"

"Bugger off, won't you? Like I'd betray you! I'm not like you."

James feels the tension building up. The last few months have been tenser than usual, ever since Sirius tricked the Greasy Git into following Remus into the Whomping Willow. Remus hasn't talked much about this, he says he doesn't need to. But the unresolved issues between two of his best friends have left James feeling quite anxious around them. He doesn't like this at all. They're his best friends. He trusts them with his life. He needs them to do the same for one another. This is how they work as a group. He would never betray any of them in any circumstances whatsoever, and he knows, he just knows, they would never betray him. Never.

"Merlin," Marlene says with a sigh. "I didn't want to cause such a mess. You need a break. Take it easy, boys, school's almost over."

"I can't wait," Peter says. "Although my mum wants me to help her redo the kitchen this summer, that's a bummer."

And just like that, they've averted another crisis.

Lily Evans ends up sitting in the same bathroom she'd been in just a few hours sooner. Only, this time, Moaning Myrtle is back in her "private quarters" and is making it much, much more difficult for them. Or, mostly for Lily, whose head is about to explode.

Because, not only is Myrtle _moaning_ as per usual, Lily's friends are having a screaming contest right next to her.

They'd been fighting on the stairs, already. But then, Rafe Walters had come in, and Mary had inadvertently knocked her elbow into Lily's cheek when she'd grabbed her to try and stop her from mauling Jane to death.

So, here they are, yelling and throwing insults, and Myrtle is complaining loudly about the noise and how "disruptive" they are. Like she has anything better to do, really. It's probably the best thing that's happened to her in months.

"You're a lying jerk is what you are! You betrayed me! You're a backstabbing bitch! I regret ever knowing you!" Mary is yelling, waving her arms around.

"Oh, you think _I'm_ a bitch? Have you looked in a mirror, lately? Here, there's one right here! Look!" Jane screams at Mary, grabbing her by the sleeve to drag her towards the sinks.

"Don't touch me!"

"Do you see yourself? Take a look at what you've become! You disgust me. You think _you_ regret knowing me? I regret everything I've ever done for you. You're the worst mistake I ever made."

There's this buzzing noise inside Lily's head, it just won't stop. She can feel her skin starting to itch from how anxious they're making her. She hates fights. She hates yelling. They make her nervous, angry, angsty. She inhales deeply, to try to stop herself from snapping. Her fists are balled up at her sides and she's trying to avoid looking at those dumbasses.

"Let go of my sleeve! I told you! Don't touch me! Don't come near me! I don't want you near me. Get your dirty lesbian hands away from me!"

"What did you just say?" Jane says, in a very quiet voice. She doesn't look angry anymore.

Mary's face has flushed a deep, sanguine red.

"I mean it," she says, but she has stopped screaming too. "Stay the hell away from me."

There's a thick electric pulse running through the air. They're all standing very still. Dahlia is throwing anxious looks at Lily, trying to gauge her reaction to the situation. Lily feels like the air has been sucked out of the room. If she moves an inch, it will probably implode. Jane looks ill, her face has turned a pale, unnatural greyish tone Lily has never seen before. Not even that time Jane had eaten one of Black's "chocolates" by mistake.

And then, something snaps in the air and Jane, kind, smart, usually soft-spoken Jane, throws herself onto Mary.

Dahlia starts shouting: "stop it! Stop it, the both of you! Are you insane?"

Dorcas takes on a more manual approach to the matter and decides to try and separate them. It's a bit unfruitful and she ends up being pushed off by a stray limb, Lily doesn't even know who pushed Dorcas, but she ends up falling down onto the ground. They don't even notice, they're scratching, punching, slapping and pulling.

"Are you for fucking real? FUCK'S SAKE! We're done! I'm out of here. You can both fuck off!" Dorcas shouts as she struggles to stand up. Dahlia gets to her before Lily can and pulls her to her feet. Once she's managed to gather her surroundings once again, she's giving the wrestling duo her finger as she storms off the room. The door's loud "BANG!" as it shuts makes Myrtle sob violently, and soon enough she starts spouting nonsense like "no one cares about me," or "why can't anyone just leave me alone?" and then she starts throwing herself into one of the bathroom stalls, in what Lily soon begins to understand is _another_ attempt at flooding the bathroom.

And that's when Lily snaps.

"You're both being ridiculous! Look at you! You bloody fucking elbowed me! And that still wasn't enough? You didn't even notice what you've done to Dorcas! What will it take for you to stop being insufferable whinny brats? You've been such a drag! D'you wanna know why I've been spending so much time in the library these past few months? It's not because of O.W.L.S! It's because I didn't want to risk being in the dorm with the two of you together. You're ruining our friendship group. And you won't even tell us why! I'm done too. You can fight like this all you want, I'm not talking to either one of you."

And she leaves, asking Dahlia "you coming?" as she does so. And Dahlia doesn't even answer, or look back, before she too begins walking away. Dahlia's the sort of people who doesn't get angry, or a loud kind of angry, anyway. She just gets silent, which, in Lily's opinion is ten times scarier than if she did yell at them like Lily does. Silence is ominous. And Dahlia, who's usually just a bubbly, lively ray of sunshine can look pretty deadly without even having to open her mouth. When the door shuts close behind them, they can still hear shrieks and screams and wails of sorrow. Neither of them says a word. They just keep walking side by side, and Dahlia grabs her hand.

Lily's too angry to feel sad. This is not a time for sadness, sorrow and pity. No, they've gone too far. And their whole friendship group is paying the price of their insanity. She doesn't want to talk to either of them. They can fight all they want. Lily is done. That's three friends in two days. At this rate, she'll be all alone by the time the summer holidays start. Great. Maybe Petunia will take pity on her. Why is she thinking about Petunia right now? That's definitely never a good idea.

"You know what," she finally tells Dahlia, squeezing her hand, and stopping to look at her. "I think I'm gonna go take a bath in the Prefects' bathroom. That sounds like a dream right now."

"Oh I'm so jealous! I want a bubble bath right now. Hell, I want a nice soak in my parents' jacuzzi right now. Oh, I can't wait for next week. I'm just going to lounge around in the pool, in the solarium, on the terrasse. I'll just lounge. That's all I'll do. Lounging. Doesn't that sound great?

Lily scrunches up her face into a distorted grimace and makes an envious noise. Bloody rich people and their bloody rich people lives.

"You're way too rich for your own good," she says with a pointed sigh.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to make you feel like that. You're still visiting me this summer aren't you?" Dahlia asks anxiously. Her hands are now resting upon Lily's shoulders and, according to her calculations, Dahlia is only a few seconds away from griping them really hard. She does this when she's worried.

"Please say yes!" she continues. "It gets lonely, you know, with both of my parents at work and my brother living in Croatia," Dahlia pleads, letting go of her shoulders – thank Merlin, Lily thinks – to pretend to pray, as she crosses her hands right under her chin and pouts.

"You don't need to do that. And that's a dirty trick and you know it! I hate it when you do that with your eyes. I'm too weak!"

"Hey, a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do, you know? I know your weaknesses and I use them well... So, you're still coming?"

"Of course I'm still coming! You think I'd pass off on the opportunity to spend two weeks _lounging_? All I want to do this summer is loungeeeee. That's all I do. _Lounge_. Like all the rich people. I louuuunge."

"Oh, not again! Stop it, Lily Evans!"

Lily just laughs and avoids Dahlia's deft fingers, which are trying to poke at her sides. She shrieks and runs away, and Dahlia doesn't follow.

She hears her echoing laughter as she says "I'll see you in the common room, alright you weirdo? Enjoy your privileged bathroom, won't ya?"

"I intend to!"

And so Lily begins her – albeit small – journey towards the Prefects' bathroom and its marvelous, large, hot, scented, bubbly bathtub. She hasn't used it much this year, she hasn't felt the need to, she was perfectly content with her usual dormitory bathroom. She'd used it just the once, actually, at the very beginning of the year, to try it out. And sure, it was brilliant, but quite unconvenient.

Again, she wonders, who in their right mind would travel all this way to get a bath? Who even thought about this? It probably was some pompous, privileged arse a few centuries ago who decided he needed a special bathroom because his special Prefect status meant he was above everyone else. She's getting angry just at the thought of this. Which is nonsensical because she's about to go and thouroughly enjoy that bathroom in a few minutes, if those damned stairs would just bugger off and – oh, finally! Freedom at last!

She's almost running towards the bathroom, at this point. She can't take it anymore. She feels icky, the scourging spells have worked, for sure, but they never quite do the trick completely. Maybe if she were a better witch she'd make them work perfectly, but as for right now, a hot bath is what she needs.

That and she is completely knackered, her shoulder still hurts from this morning, the back of her head is still slightly throbbing and her cheek has garnered a nice swelling bruise in the making. What a spiffing day.

Lily spots the door – finally, heaven has shown itself to her – and sighs in relief. She's semi-running semi-walking, which, she's quite sure of this, makes her look utterly and completely ridiculous. But at this point, she has no care left in the world. All she wants is to soak into burning hot water until her skin turns to mush and her muscles loosen.

She opens it and is struck by the beauty of it all. She'd forgotten how nice that bathroom was. She should come here more often. The sheer size of the bathtub is mesmerizing in and of itself. Lily finds herself gazing at it infatuatedly, the same way she usually stares at trifle. Oh, now she wants trifle. Bugger it all.

The door closes behind her and startles her, which, saves her from the embarassment of staring at an empty bathtub the way one usually stares at a loved one. Whatever, there's no one to see her here.

She walks all the over to the swimming pool – because, let's face it, this is way closer to a swimming pool than to a mere bathtub – and turns what she hopes is the water tap on. A peachy pink water starts to fill the tub. An array of other taps, about a hundred or so of them, sit next to it, and she begins to ponder about what scents she wants in her bath as she takes off her shoes. She'll play with them all later, probably. Toeing one sock off and then the other, she runs the tips of her fingers across the jewells embedded into the taps. That rich, pompous prat from centuries ago had good tastes. She opens up one tap, to try it out, because patience has never been her strong suit, and finds out that it is what seems to be strawberry shampoo. And just like that, her day has turned around quite nicely.

She's grinning as she quickly takes off the rest of her clothes, laying her wand next to the bathtub's lip, at arms length. You never know what can happen, in this castle. And Peeves has been known to turn up in this bathroom a few times over the years, she's not about to risk being creeped on by a poltergeist, no thank you.

She grabs a towel nearby, and wraps it around herself, suddenly feeling a tiny bit more vulnerable at the thought of Peeves watching her without her knowledge. And so, she awaits for the water to be completely filled up before she can walk into what she thinks will be the welcoming and soothing warmth of the bath. She's sitting on the edge of the pool, her feet playing with the water, splashing it around softly, she's staring at the circular waves her toes create on the water. It doesn't take as long as she'd thought it would for the water to fill up the tub. She'd been surprised the first time too, from what she remembers. Magic does have its perks. This bathtub is probably one of the bigger ones so far. That and make-up spells. Which have definitely proven their worth over the last few years.

She drops the towel and finally, after nearly ten hours since she first awoke this morning, has something nice happen to her. At last. The warmth engulfs her nicely and she closes her eyes for a second. She walks in silently, exhaling slowly and steadily. Her hands caress the water. She feels like the Lady of the Lake, except her lake is a giant, warm, bathtub, and there's no magic sword around. Maybe Godric Gryffindor's sword isn't too far away, she thinks, but no one has seen it in ages.

Once she has sunk into the bathtub up to her shoulders, she takes a few laps. You really _can_ swim in this tub. This is marvelous. She might stay here forever and become the Lady of the Tub. She giggles at the thought and begins imagining herself as some sort of Arthurian sorceress.

She lets her wandering thoughts lead her astray for a moment, enjoying the pleasant sensation of letting her imagination run free, and, after a while, stops to simply enjoy her precious moment and settles down near her wand, resting the back of her neck against the tub.

She stays like this for a long time, alone and content. She doesn't think about anything or anyone but herself, and the novelty of it all surprises her quite nicely. She just wishes she had a way to play music in here, and everything would be perfect. Instead, she hums the tunes of different songs she's had stuck in her head for years as she scrubs at her skin thoroughly with a lush vanilla-scented shower gel. Except humming soon turns into singing which turns into belting out Dancing Queen very loudly into her wand as she pretends it is a microphone. She's let one of the bubbles tap on and there's quite a lot in the water. She blows at them to make them fly around, like she used to do when she was a child.

Her, slightly-more-energetic-than-usal, movements are causing quite a ruckus and she's creating tidal wave after tidal wave in the pool, but she doesn't care. The bubbles have long spilled onto the floor, and she's half-jumping half-spinning around, letting herself fall down onto the water and giggling as she does so.

She's having fun. That's a first today. She's sort of proud of herself.

She's managed to find the strawberry shampoo tap again and she's lathering her hair vigorously. It needs it. It's been quite covered in blood for a while. Except she's a bit too rough and winces when her fingers press into her scalp with too much pressure. She gets more careful after that and tries to avoid the painful area altogether, barely brushing past it when she needs to clean the area. She is as thorough as she manages to be without hurting herself.

She plunges her head under the water, and stays like this for a few seconds, her cheeks all puffed out, before she shakes her head to try and get as much of the product out of her hair. It's a technique she's been performing ever since she was a child. It works great. Lily comes up for air with a deep breath and pushes her hair out of her face.

She grabs her wand to detangle her red mane, it's always a hassle and there's no way she's dealing with a brush today, she might hurt herself again. It takes no more than two seconds and she's so thankful for her gift at charms. It's truly the best for days like this. She's feeling so much better, anyway. All of her worries are gone.

With her fingertips all pruned up, and the fact that the water is getting cold, she's about to give in and get out of the tub when she hears a knock on the door.

"Lily? Lily, are you in there?" a voice calls out from the corridor.

"Who is it?" Lily asks back, hurrying up to get out of the water, grabbing her towel and circling it around her chest.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: The Prefects and the Scamp**

"Lily? It's Amelia! I went by the Gryffindor tower and I was told you were in here. Could you come out, please? It's rather urgent."

Why in Merlin's name was Amelia Bones looking for her, out of all people? Did she have a last minute Prefects' meeting planned out? Did Lily mess up the points system? Did Slughorn and Pomfrey find out she'd lied earlier? Did she come to tell her that she was no longer a Prefect?

"I'll be right out! Just a second!" Lily answers, feeling her anxiousness pulling at her stomach.

Lily hurries out of the bath, splashing the poor marble floor again. She dries herself as quickly as she can, hastily wrapping herself in the towel that had previously laid discarded on the floor. It is damp and cold against her skin, but she clearly doesn't have time to get fully dressed. This will have to do. She hopes to Merlin that Amelia isn't too keen on propriety and won't mind her current state of undress.

"I'm coming!" she calls out, to reassure Amelia that she was indeed hurrying up as planned, holding on to her towel with one hand to make sure it stayed in place. With her wet hair dripping everywhere, and her foot steps leaving a wet trail of prints behind her, it rather makes her feel like Hop-o'-My-Thumb in one of those children stories her mother used to read to her. She feels awkward enough as it is, but then almost falls down as she slips on the floor, which makes her regret ever hurrying in the first place.

Lily finally opens the door – holding onto the door knob with dear life to avoid another close call – and instead of coming out of the bathroom, decides to pull Amelia in with her. She barely has time to see her and locate her when her hand has already grabbed Amelia's wrist and is taking her into the bathroom.

"I'm sorry, I haven't had time to get dressed and I didn't want to be half-naked in the corridor..." Lily says, looking half-ashamed of herself. "Oh, be careful, don't slip on the floor. It's wet, I'm sorry, I got too enthusiastic with the water earlier."

Truth be told, the bathroom is a mess. A giant, messy, chaotic, mess. There's water and bubbly foam on the floor, Lily's clothes are half-haphazardly thrown around the room, where she first saw fit to discard of them in her hurried, thrilled and frenzied need to find relief earlier on.

Amelia looks concerned, to say the least. Great, Lily thinks. Just what she needed. She probably thinks Lily is crazy. She might as well be.

"Oh dear, it wasn't that urgent. You could have gotten dressed, you know. Do you want me to come out, right now? I don't mind," Amelia is already taking a few tentative steps towards the door, and Lily can tell she doesn't want to be in here with her right now. Which, if she were to be fair, Lily would absolutely find understandable. Right now, however, it just makes her feel like the biggest failure in the history of humanity. Which is always fun, in a way, because that's surely a Guinness World Record. But then again, if she wins a world record, is she really a failure? It's those sort of stupid ramblings that make people think she's crazy, just as Sirius Black had told her earlier in the Library.

"No, no it's fine, just tell me what it is," Lily answers, shaking her head and, once again, grabbing Amelia Bones by the wrist, to let her know she wants her to stay.

"Alright. Here," Amelia says, as she quickly shoves her hand in the pocket of her robes, and then hands her a folded up piece of parchment. Lily eyes it carefully but doesn't quite dare take it from Amelia.

"Take it," she insists, shoving the parchment closer to Lily, who grabs it hesitantly. "It's a note from Dumbledore," Amelia continues. "He told me to come see you to give it to you immediately."

"Oh," Lily mutters in response, her heart sinking in her chest. "Thanks."

"It's nothing, it's my job. You'll see, in a couple of years, when it's you who'll have to bring notes from Dumbledore to mostly-naked Prefects, you'll wonder why you've accepted the position."

Amelia is clearly joking, but Lily can feel the flaming heat rising to her cheeks instantly.

"I'm just... I'm sorry. You said it was urgent and I thought there might be... I don't know, some sort of emergency? I panicked. I'm sorry, really, I am... I should have gotten dressed." Lily adds, mostly for herself. She must be beet-red by now, she should have learned Invisibility Spells, she just wants to disappear right now. She's heard Zonko's sells invisibility cloaks, maybe she could go and buy one this week-end in Hogsmeade.

She ducks her head, too ashamed to look Amelia in the eye. This is a disaster.

"Lily, I'm joking, it's alright. It's just banter. I don't actually mind. I've been living with four other girls for the past seven years, I've seen my fair share of mostly-naked girls before. I was just..."

"And about the Head Girl thing, you know there's no way I'm getting that, right?" Lily manages to half-stutter the sentence out, cutting off Amelia, which, albeit extremely rude, has the beneficial effect of making her stop whatever terribly awkward sentence she was going to tell Lily.

"Are you kidding?" Amelia huffs, looking downright scandalized, right now. Lily doesn't quite know whether it's because she cut her off or because of what she said.

"I've seen the other fifth-years, especially the Prefects, there's no way you're not the one getting stuck with that badge. Believe me, you're the smartest of them all, by far. Dumbledore's never gonna pass on the occasion, I mean, unless you get half your brains hexed off of you."

Lily lets out a small chuckle. She's still blushing – at least, she thinks she is, if the heat in her cheeks is any indication – but not for the same reason. So it was about the Prefects thing, then, not about being cut off. That's that at least.

"Also, I don't think Slughorn would forgive him if he ever chose someone else. He'd probably just quit right on the spot. He's been talking about retiring for years now, that'd just be the one thing to push him over, I guess."

Lily laughs, genuinely laughs this time.

"Oh trust me, he'll find his excuse sooner or later. It'll probably be when I leave Hogwarts, he'll pretend he can't go on without me."

"You know, I think that might be more likely than you think. He's constantly bragging about you. He's apparently persuaded himself into thinking his teaching skills are responsible for your talents."

"I mean, he did teach me all I know about Potions..." Lily answers, slightly offended by Amelia's comment. Sure, Slughorn is a bit pedantic and pretentious, but he's a good and fair teacher. She's glad he's the one who taught her.

"Oh I didn't mean to insult him, no, I kinda like him. It's just that, you know... I'm pretty sure you'd have done perfectly fine without him as your teacher. I've heard Snape is pretty great too, isn't he? You're friends, right? You could start some sort of club too. The "not-slug's-club club". I'd join if this weren't my last week here."

"Oh, er, we're not friends any more, actually. It's just... It didn't work out. You know, people grow up and they change and you change and just... You're not friends any more."

"Ah, yes. Been there. Sorry to have mentioned his name then... Anyway, I'll leave you alone. You should get dressed. I'll see you at dinner, then, shall I? And then at the last meeting on Sunday?"

Lily doesn't answer, her throat feels like it's been sown shut. She nods, anyway. She wishes she could turn herself into an ant and disappear forever. She should clearly pay more attention in Transfiguration, McGonagall must have given them some information about that. It's surely more important than vanishing lizards. Maybe she could vanish herself. The idea is tempting, but the execution might seem problematic. For starters, she has no idea how she would unvanish herself when the time would come, or what it would feel like to be vanished. Where would she go? Does anyone know where vanished people go? Has research been done on the subject? She'd need to ask Dorcas, she knows plenty about Transfiguration.

Amelia has already opened the door and is walking out into the corridor when she stops for a second and starts talking again.

"Oh, and by the way Lily... Trust me, you're gonna get stuck with being Head Girl. Who knows, you might even like it more than I did." Amelia says with a wink, before closing the door behind her. Lily doesn't even have time to answer before she's gone completely.

She's terribly embarrassed, this is clearly the most awkward and humiliating thing that's happened to her all year. And that's counting the time she showed up to class with her sweater inside out.

She clutches Dumbledore's note in her hand as she reflexively tightens it up around her towel. That's what reminds her that that was the reason why Amelia had gone to seek her out in the first place.

She drops her hand and stares down at the note for a few seconds not quite daring to open it up. There's a myriad of questions forming in her mind, she finds herself doubting everything, but she doesn't let her anxiousness win. She doesn't want to think about why Dumbledore might want to see her. Maybe... No. She'll ruin everything if she worries too much. And so, she opens it, and inside of the yellowed, thick parchment, she finds the familiar handwriting of her headmaster.

"Miss Evans," the note reads. "Please do come meet me in my office after dinner, there are some issues that I need to discuss with you in private.

Yours sincerely,

Professor Dumbledore."

Lily felt herself pale considerably. "Some issues" he'd said. What were the issues? Had he found out? Did he know she had lied to Pomfrey? He probably did. Dumbledore always knows everything. Slughorn probably came to see him to tell him he needed to take disciplinary measures. This is terrible. Terrible, she keeps repeating the word like a mantra. She's gonna be fired as a Prefect. She's probably not coming back next September. Oh, Petunia would have a blast if she found out.

Why did Dumbledore have to be so vague? Couldn't he just tell her what was going on? Oh this was terrible. Terrible and so incredibly vague.

Lily quickly gathers her clothes and begins getting dressed, gnawing on the inside of her cheeks all the while. It's a bad habit of hers, her mother says that one of these days she'll chew right through and she'll have to get stitches. Or at least, it's what she used to say before Lily showed her how she could heal her own wounds. She'd gotten a letter from the Ministry again, that day, after she'd scrapped her knee whilst playing in the small woods near her parent's house and she'd proudly shown her mum how easily she could fix it. Lily had an inkling that the Improper use of Magic Office was out to get her, anyway.

She'd once gotten a letter when she'd accidentally multiplicated a toad. It had been a mistake, really, she'd just been furious at Petunia, who had spent half of the summer hols whining on and on about Lily's "disgusting pets" and "dark magic".

And so they'd fought on a regular basis, Lily reminding her regularly that the toads weren't her pets, but that she'd used them to test out her potions, and that if Petunia so wished, she could test them on her instead. That had usually shut her up, because Petunia actually believed Lily would do it, but on that day, Petunia had thrown out one of her toads in the garden, and claimed she hadn't done it. Lily had seen her do it, and they'd both gotten really angry, until Lily had snapped and multiplicated the toads. There'd been maybe three or four of them altogether at first, which had turned into about a hundred or so of them. Petunia had shrieked with all her might, had thrown the biggest fit Lily had ever seen and had called her mum for help.

Their mum had refused to chose sides, as she often did, to "de-escalate the conflict" as she used to say. She often referred to her two daughters as "the Eastern bloc" and the "Western bloc", which made her proudly giggle quite a bit, whilst her daughters were still having glaring contests. Her dad, on the contrary, often said that it was just natural for siblings to fight like that. But there was nothing normal about what they fought about. Normal siblings didn't fight about magical abilities, wands and the scrawny wizard that lived a few blocks away. That was something they wouldn't fight about any more, at least… She might become a tad insufferable, though, all smug and haughty, she'll undeniably brag about knowing best, about having guessed he was a no-good brute of a boy way before Lily did. She would have to deal with that matter too, in a few days...

THUMP THUMP! There's someone knocking on the door, the noise brings her out of her reverie.

"Is there someone inside? I need to use the loo!"

"I'm coming!"

"Hurry up, won't ya?"

And so she flees the bathroom, pushed out by some angry-looking sixth-year Ravenclaw Prefect. Her hair is still wet, and so she finds herself having to dry it in the corridor, using her wand both as a comb and as a hair dryer. This is getting out of hand.

She's standing there, in the middle of the nearest empty corridor she could find in her hurry. With her bag laying on the floor, her clothes rumpled and definitely still blood-stained, all she can think about is the sheer lack of care she has left. She doesn't care that a few third-years have gawked at her as they were passing by. She doesn't care that she heard their comments, their "oh, isn't that the Prefect, Lily something? The one who showed up at lunch?" their "oh, yeah, the one who got in a fight over Potter with the Slytherins?" and their "I've heard she's been in love with him for years but he doesn't even know who she is, I think it's sad."

She might have and _would_ have been offended that they thought her a lowlife, enamoured pathetic teenager if she had any dignity left. But, mercifully, she did not. And so she continues brushing and heating up her hair in silence, slightly glowering at passer-bys as she does so. She might not have any dignity left, but she isn't about to let everyone know it.

That pretence doesn't really last, of course, since someone she knows comes along and her lack of dignity somehow manages to evaporate and she stops what she's doing immediately.

She might have been a _tad_ too humiliated for one day. Although she's pretty sure Remus wouldn't care and he would just ignore her weird hair-drying technique in empty corridors, because that's just the type of person Remus is.

She's gotten to know him quite a lot better this year, as they've had to share endless hours of rounds and meetings together. He wasn't much of a talker, at first, and mostly just listened to her rant and vent and mindlessly chitchat at him. But then, she'd started to ask questions, like, "where are you from?", "don't you hate Professor Binns' class? I almost went back to sleep this morning." and "do you have any siblings? I have a sister, she's dreadful."

And so he'd started to tell her more about who he was.

He often did fall back asleep during Binns' class, as it turned out, and so did plenty of other people, apparently. His middle name was John, which was a stark contrast to his unusual first and last names. He was an only child, he preferred being at Hogwarts than at home, where he tended to feel lonelier. He said Sirius, Peter and James were the best best friends anyone could wish they had and that he was eternally grateful to them for having befriended him. To which she had scoffed and answered "are you kidding me, Remus _John_ Lupin? You're an excellent mate, you've offered to write down my point deductions and detentions for months now! I'm spoilt, if you're ever sick for longer than a few days, I'll be unable to function properly. I don't think I even remember how to fill out the forms." He'd blushed and mumbled something about "making up for the times he wasn't here" which had made her grab him by the shoulders to stop him from talking.

"You're an idiot, Remus," she remembers having said.

"I get that a lot, surprisingly, yeah," he'd answered with a sheepish grin forming on his face.

"Mostly from me, I suppose?"

"Oh no, definitely not. Sirius and Peter, mostly."

"Well, that's quite rude of them, isn't it?" she'd said, with a huge smile that threatened to turn into laughter.

"Oh the hypocrisy!" he'd laughed, his finger shoving into her shoulder, making her slightly stumble backward.

And she'd complained, loudly, but couldn't contain her laughter any longer.

"Oh hey, Lily!" Remus tells her now, and she startles, still clutching her wand in her hand.

"Hey Remus! How're you?" she asks him, dropping her wand into her pocket, trying to look normal.

"I'm fine. Are you though? You look a bit… I don't know, spaced out? What's happened?" Remus always seems to know when she's not okay. Although this might have been spurt on by the fact that he'd seen the whole bloody, gruesome scene yesterday. He's probably thinking she's torn up over it. She's not. Not really. Alright, maybe slightly. But not more than slightly. And that's already good enough for now.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just… tired I guess. It's been a long day."

"Yeah, not your best one so far, is it?"

"Unfortunately no. But you know what? I think I won't have a worst day than this one, so that's something. I've survived this one so far. I might be invincible after all."

"Oh, I'd believe that."

"Yeah I ought to get into some sort of dangerous profession, like dragon tamer or I could work for the Ministry for the vampire division."

"I don't think there's a vampire division," Remus chuckles.

"Oh, drat, I thought I'd found my true calling right there! Eh, maybe I could try and apply for a position as Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. It seems like they all just either quit, vanish or die of old age after a year, that sounds like a challenge to me."

"Oh I do believe you'd be the one to break the record and go for a two-year run without breaking a single bone."

"Oh now, Remus, don't be unrealistic. I might do one and a half, sure. But two full years? Now, that's just impossible."

They both start laughing and Lily hasn't felt this good all day.

"You know what? I'm glad we're friends, Remus," she tells him with a residual grin, her stomach slightly hurting from the laughter.

"Well, that's always nice to hear. May I ask what brought this around?"

He is grinning back at her, but Lily can clearly see he is still slightly concerned.

"Nothing," she says, hoping to reassure him. "It's just… It's getting harder, you know? We're getting older, we'll have to leave Hogwarts in a few years. And with a war around… It's just nice to know I'll have people like you around. I really am glad we've become such good friends this year, you know?"

"Lily… You shouldn't… I'm not… Just, don't count on me too much, alright? I don't know what's gonna happen when we leave… Just, forget it, alright?"

"What are you talking about?" she asks him, her eyes narrowing. Is he telling her he doesn't want to still be friends with her when they leave Hogwarts?

"It's just that… I don't know, Lily. I don't know how to tell you this. I just might not be the type of person you want around."

"What are you saying? Is it because of me?" she dares to ask, feeling her eyes start to well-up, the familiar prickling sensation making its comeback. "Is it _me_ or my _blood-status_? Oh my God, Remus, I didn't think you would… Shit. You too? Shit shit shit."

She's almost crying now, and is already turning on her heels to just _flee_ when he grabs her by the wrist.

"No! No no no, no. Bloody hell, no! You can't think that! It's nothing to do with you."

He's panicking, and seems to have realized what his words would mean to her.

"I swear to you, Lily, I swear. I would never judge you for that. Alright?"

"What, then? Why the hell wouldn't I want to be friends with you?" she questions him angrily, her resolve unwavering and her balled-up hands sitting firmly on her hips.

"I just… I wish I could tell you. But not now, okay? You have to trust me. It's nothing to do with you. I'll tell you, one day. I swear to you."

He looks terrified, as if he thinks he ought to be scared of her, of her anger. She sighs, and the tension that had been building up in her body dissipates slowly.

"Are you… Are you afraid to tell me? Remus, I swear to you, there's not one thing you could tell me that would make me hate you. We're friends. You know that, don't you?"

"I know," he breathes out, his voice barely higher than a whisper. "It's just messed up, and I wish I could tell you..."

"Alright, here's what we're gonna do," she tells him firmly, her gaze fixed on him. "You don't have to tell me anything. But if one day, I don't know, you happen to find yourself in need of a mate? Yeah? You come and find me, won't you?"

"Will do," he tells her, his sheepish grin having made a come back.

"Oh and by the way, Remus, mate, remember that time I told you you were an idiot?"

"Yeah?"

"You're being an idiot again."

"I know it might seem that way, but trust me. It's better if you don't know."

He's stopped smiling, his frown digging lines into his already scarred face.

"What? Do you have some sort of dark, twisted secret? Is that it?" she scoffs. "Come off it, Remus, I'd know if you were some sort of dangerous murderer, wouldn't I? I don't think Dumbledore would have let you in… Unless, Dumbledore doesn't know? Or did you bribe him? Is that it? Did you bribe Dumbledore to stop him from snitching you out as a murderer? What a wild life you lead."

She's smiling broadly, and her ploy is working – somewhat. Remus has the tiniest of smiles forming at the corner of his lips, and she stares at him with pride flaring up in her chest. One day, he'll tell her everything.

"Where were you going, by the way?"

"Oh, I was just going to the bathroom," he answers a bit awkwardly.

"Oh, well I'll leave you be, then…" she mumbles, unsure, and takes a small step backwards, indicating her willingness to end the conversation. But, before she can stop herself, she finds herself saying: "what time is it anyway?"

"I left the Common Room around a quarter past six, so I'd say it's six thirty, maybe? Why?"

"I just wanted to know if the Great Hall had reopened for dinner. It's probably fine. I could wait for you outside, you know, while you're in the bathroom and then we'll go together, yeah?"

She might seem a bit too desperate, but at this point, she doesn't really care any more. Truth is, she's terrified of going to the Great Hall by herself. What if no one she knows is here? What if the Slytherins are here? What if he is here? She can't do this by herself. They might try and attack her again, it's not safe. She should be braver, she shouldn't be afraid, but she is.

Remus is eyeing her carefully, he looks like he's pondering whether or not it's a good idea. But then he just shrugs, as if the fleeting seconds of hesitations that had just seemed to have lingered on his face had never occurred, and just says: "yeah, sure. I won't be long."

It's a relief, but she doesn't let it show. And so they go, she follows his path until he gets to the door of the 5th floor's boy's restroom.

She's left standing alone, once again, in an empty corridor, she ponders her options for a while and decides to just lean against the wall to play with her wand. She's changing the colour of her gold bracelet, turning it blue and red and yellow, and every other colour she can think off when she hears a couple of muffled voices coming over.

"Oy, Evans!" someone shouts out loudly, and she has to refrain herself from groaning out loud.

"Yeah?" she asks, without looking up.

"What happened earlier on the stairs, you were there weren't you?"

"Nothing new. Jane and Mary were having a fit, as per usual. Nothing that concerns you."

"Oh, come on Evans… What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Waiting for your mate to come out of the bathroom."

"Remus is in here? Brilliant!"

"Why, were you searching for me?" Remus asks, and Lily realizes he's just left the bathroom.

"Well… Yeah. Y'know, it appears that you so happen to have… Err, some important piece of parchment in your possession. And I need it. You know, to write stuff."

"You're so not discreet," Lily laughs, almost mockingly. "If I cared about the sort of nonsense you get into, I'd inquire a bit further, but since I clearly don't, go on. I don't mind. I'll just pretend you don't exist, shall I? That's worked out fine for the last five years."

"Always so harsh," he says, seemingly scandalized by her words, putting a hand to his chest for good measure. "It's as if you don't like me at all."

That gets a chuckle out of her, and he flashes her a smug grin in return. He might be a daft, arrogant scamp, but he's downright funny when he wants to be.

"You know who you remind me of?" she asks, trying to refrain herself from laughing.

"No," he says with a huff, blowing his dark, long hair out of his face in the process.

"This cartoon character in one of the animated films I used to watch as a kid. His name was Scamp."

"Oh, what was he like? Was he particularly handsome?"

"Not really my type, not really into the grey hair I guess. But I suppose he might do for some."

"Oh, come on, give me more. That's at least an interesting name for a character, was he up to no good?"

"Oh he sure was. With him being a vagrant flea-infested mongrel and all that. I guess you could say he was up to no good."

"A mongrel?" Remus sputters out, obviously trying not to laugh. "Did you just say "a mongrel"?

"I sure did," Lily answers, giggling, which, in turn makes Remus break into roaring laughter.

Sirius, who hasn't said a word yet, looks downright baffled, to say the least.

"Did you just… Did she just compare me to a dog?" he says, before he starts to laugh, very very loudly so.

It's Lily's turn to be unable to speak. She hadn't planned for that. He's still laughing, and has actually put a hand on the wall next to him to steady himself.

"You… Haha... You… Hahaha…. And you don't… She doesn't even… Hahaha."

Lily's stopped laughing for a while now, and is looking at him with a confused look, which is starting to turn into concern. He's bent over now, holding his arm against his stomach.

Remus is laughing, too and Lily has never felt so out of place before. She's starting to blush, she can feel it. It sort of feels like they're making fun of her now. This is embarrassing, to say the least.

She's about to tell them she's leaving when Sirius speaks up again.

"Oh that's just brilliant, Evans. Pure brilliance," he manages to stutter out, between fits of laughter, before clapping his hand against her back, which startles her, because she'd been looking down and hasn't noticed he was getting closer. The sharp, stinging sensation wakes her up, for sure, though. She's looking straight into his eyes, which look watery and very cheerful. He'd make a good mate, she thinks, for a brief second, before shaking the horrid thought out of her head.

Remus has considerably sobered up, and Sirius seems to be doing the same, anyway.

"Right, well, I'm pretty brilliant in general, am I not?"

"Oh for sure, we've never doubted that, have we, Remus?"

"No we haven't," he answers, looking very cheeky.

"So, Moony, hand it over, won't you?" Sirius says abruptly, changing the subject. "The parchment, I mean. I have to get to… Err, I have to write down some stuff, yeah?"

"Right," Remus says, shoving a hand in his pocket, digging around for a few seconds before actually pulling out a thick, folded, apparently blank piece of parchment. "Take care of it, won't you? Don't lose it. We actually need it. You know. To write stuff down."

Lily chuckles again and mutters, "So not discreet. I swear to Merlin," but she sends a grin in Remus' direction, a mischievous glint in her eye. Sure, she might not get into much trouble herself, but she kind of finds it enthralling when other people do it. She gets her fill of adrenaline this way, hearing about her fellow Gryffindors' wild adventures. Who knows, someday she, too, might do some things that'll be worth be told other people about. As unlikely as it might seem to her now.

"Right," Sirius says, quickly taking the parchment to hide it in his pocket. "I won't, I promise."

Remus throws him a pointed look, which Sirius mirrors exaggeratedly.

"I said I promise," he says defensively, throwing one hand up in he air.

"Alright, sure, but James will flip his shit if you mess up," Remus answers, not backing down. He looks very responsible, like Lily's mum when she wants her to tidy up her room. Lily gathers that dealing with Sirius is pretty much the same as dealing with a teenage girl who just won't sort out her dirty laundry.

"Well, I'll deal with James if that happens then won't I?"

"Sure you will."

Sirius lets out a sigh, which is clearly meant to express his displeasure, before speaking up again: "Alright," he says "I'll leave you two to it, then, won't I? Yeah. Got some writing to do, after all. See you later, at dinner?"

"Sure," Remus answers with a shrug. Lily doesn't even bother with an answer, she's not planning on seeing him at dinner at all, actually. She'll have to go find Dumbledore, she won't have time for his shenanigans.

Sirius leaves to do Merlin knows what, Lily doesn't want to find out, ever. She looks at Remus to await his decision. She's waiting for him to tell her they're going to the Great Hall, because she doesn't really want to go. Even though she's starving. Jane and Mary will probably be there. Snape and his "friends" will be there. Potter might be there too, and that's always awkward. Why does this castle have to be filled up with people she could very well do without seeing?

"Shall we?" Remus questions, looking at her somewhat hesitantly.

"Yeah, let's go. I'm starving, you have no idea."

"Well, from what I know, you haven't had lunch so that'd explain it."

"Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, that explains a lot."

They keep talking all the way over to the Great Hall, laughing and sticking to happy, non-heart-wrecking subjects, which is exactly what she needs.

"Thanks for coming with me, by the way," she tells him, as they enter the room, squeezing his arm for a second.

"To dinner? Oh yeah, what a chore. Imagine that. Having to go eat. With you. Wow, I can't believe how terrible my life is."

"Ha ha," she dead-pans, "I mean it. That's nice of you. It's been a rough day. I just didn't want to go alone. Thank you."

"It's gonna be alright, Lily, I swear to you."

"Yeah yeah, I know. It's just… It doesn't always seem that way."

"I know what you mean... You know what?" he says, after a brief pause.

"What?"

"I'm really glad we're friends, too."

"Aww, Remus, I'm glad too," a voice calls out from behind them and Lily just _groans_. Out loud.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Balding Spots. (or: The Couch – It's a damn good couch.)**

James sees them walking side by side and his stomach curls up inside him painfully. How dearly he wishes he could be friends with her. She looks rather content, and Remus has a faint smile on his lips. It's terrifyingly sad, in a way, to see such a nice scene.

"I'm really glad we're friends, too," James hears Remus tell Lily, his voice sweet and sickening.

James' heart has stopped beating for a second, and his stomach churns.

"Aww, Remus, I'm glad too," he answers, bitterly. He hates this feeling. He positively hates it.

The truth is that James Potter is feeling _slightly_ irked at the moment. He hears Lily groan and the bitterness evaporates. He shouldn't have snapped like that.

"You just passed right by me," he says, slightly ashamed of his previous tone. He sounds guilty. Great.

"Didn't see you there mate," Remus answers him, not the least disgruntled by James' tone or his awkward demeanour. "How and why are you here, anyway? I thought you wanted to stay in the dorm."

It was true. James had said those stupid words aloud, earlier. Remus did look somewhat surprised to actually see James out of bed, and not moping around under a blanket that was way too hot for the weather they'd been having as of late. But the overwhelming heat, though tempting as it had been, had not been quite tempting enough to stop him from following his grumbling stomach's will, and James had thus practically run all the way down towards the Great Hall, where dinner would be waiting for him.

Food was the best thing he could look towards right now. That and the liquor Sirius and Peter were going to go sneak into Hogwarts for their improvised party, which was set to take place tonight, at 8:30 p.m. in the Gryffindor common room to "celebrate the end of the year". And sure enough, they'd been sneakily planning this very party all year long, but James had been so preoccupied as of late that he'd sort of completely forgotten to help with the necessary preparations that he would usually be entrusted with.

"I got hungry," James answers, not quite daring to look at Lily. He knows she doesn't want to be around him. He knows this is making her uncomfortable. "Did Sirius find you? He needed the… Parchment. For the… Thing. You know?"

"Yes, yes he did."

"Oh for Merlin's bloody sake won't any of you at least try to be more subtle?" Lily suddenly erupts, taking him by surprise. He hadn't thought she'd talk to him at all, during his exchange with Remus. He'd thought she'd try her best and avoid him. But there she is, a few tiny feet away from him – is it two or three? He can't really tell – and she's staring at him. Only he'd rather she wasn't, because it made it hard to breathe, swallow and talk. That's the moment James realizes that his throat might have gone missing, that's the only explanation, he's desperately trying to swallow, but it feels like his throat's been replaced by rocks and sand all at once.

Remus just starts laughing, which greatly confuses James, who's trying to avoid looking at Lily with utter concern. He keeps darting his eyes up for a second and then reminding himself that he shouldn't. She's mad at him. His heart is a frantic mess, he's terrified of having messed everything up once more without even having talked to her directly. That'd be a first. Probably. At worst a second. Maybe a third if you can count… He'd just rather not think about that time in second year again.

"We're not the subtle kind, I know," Remus answers with a cheeky grin.

James looks at Remus. It's easier than looking at Lily. So he keeps his eyes on him, until Lily talks to him again. This is not at all a recurrent thing for the two of them. She never talks to him. He's used to that. It's easier to be madly in love with someone who blissfully ignores your existence than with someone who can just… talk to you. This is a new form of torture he'd never quite expected to actually experience. How do people do it? He's seen plenty of couples, out and inside Hogwarts, and none of them have ever looked like they're about to faint from having so do so much as _talk_ to the other.

"Yeah, I gathered as much," she says, and he sort of feels like jumping out of the nearest window, except they're on the first floor and that wouldn't do enough damage to his brain to make it worth it. This is reaching some new level of insanity. Why is she making casual conversation with him? "What's even on that damned parchment of yours?"she asks, cocking her head to the side and raising both her eyebrows.

Rock and sand again. Bloody hell he hates his own throat so much.

"Top secret information," James hears himself answer. He doesn't know how the words managed to escape his throat, but he can definitely hear them. His voice sounds very foreign to him, but it's still his, he's sure of that. Shit. He hadn't planned for this. He's not prepared for casual banter. This is not the sort of things he usually does in Lily Evans' presence.

"Yeah, we can't tell you," Remus continues, smirking all smugly.

"Or what? You'd have to kill me?" Lily huffs, rolling her eyes, and tugging a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

James' hands itch terribly and he tries to stay as still as he can, his eyes dart away from her for a second before he has time to understand what she was saying.

There it is, a cold, sudden pang of sheer terror.

"What? Why would you say that?" James asks breathlessly, and dear Merlin if he's not completely terrified right now. Why would she ever think he'd ever consider killing her? Panic is throbbing through his brain, and he's looking at her desperately, trying to find an answer.

He's not really looking at Remus, he's too focused on Lily's face to do so, but he can definitely feel him tense too. Lily's eyes shift from his to Remus' and she's looking very surprised by their panic.

"What do you mean? Oh come on, I swear to Merlin, you should all hang out with Muggle-Borns more often. It's a saying. You know, super villains use it in super cliché films and comics. I'm not saying you want to kill me. Of course I don't think that."

She's moving away from them, or rather, she's walking towards the table, and taking a seat. She doesn't seem to care that much that James is here after all. Maybe she's pretending not to care, so as not to offend Remus. James isn't sure. But she's smiling at the both of them.

"Oh come on, relax, it's a joke."

"Muggles have weird jokes," Remus tells her.

"Not really, it's just that you can't understand them very well when you don't have the context."

"Where's Peter?" James asks Remus. "I thought he'd be with you."

"He's with Sirius."

"Oh, they're gone then?"

"Yes, they should be back in an hour. Right in time."

"Good."

Lily has turned her back to them, now, and is filling her plate with mashed potatoes and some type of sausage which she's covered in sauce. Both Remus and him are just awkwardly standing in the middle of the pathway between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw tables.

"Are you just gonna stand there and watch me eat? Cause I'm starving and I'm not gonna wait all evening. I got an appointment, you know," she tells them without looking back at them.

She's apparently done filling up her plate and has started cutting her meat into pieces, before rotating so she's standing sideways at the table, both of her legs still under the table.

"You do?" Remus asks her, moving closer to take a seat. "With whom?"

"Dumbledore," she tries to say through a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

James sees the left side of her face, that's it. But it's enough. And although he can not really get a full picture, it's clear to him that she looks ridiculous, waving her fork around like she's practising spells and cheeks puffed out from the amount of food she's shovelled into her mouth. James' stomach is doing some sort of strange dance he's all too used to by now. His lips curl into a smile and she catches his eyes staring at her. He drops his gaze in a second.

"Oh mock me all you want, Potter, I'm famished. Let me eat in peace," she grumbles and he peeks a look.

"I didn't say anything," he answers, but she's got some sauce on the corner of her lips and he can not stop himself from smiling.

"Is he always such a bother?" she asks, staring at him directly, although it seems quite clear to James that the question wasn't meant for him.

"Yes."

"No!" both Remus and him answer at the same time.

"Oy! How dare you? I'm a delight," James complains.

"Sure you are," Remus snorts. "Such a delight. Right. Remember last night? Or this morning?"

James doesn't answer. Because he doesn't want to be rude. That's it. Not because Remus is right, or anything stupid like that. Because of course Remus isn't right. And James absolutely is a delight. His mum tells him so all the time.

"Is he just going to stand there all evening?" Lily asks again, this time looking at Remus.

"Probably, I don't think his brain is able to tell him to move right now."

"I just have to go and grab my plate. I was eating over there before you came in and completely ignored my presence."

James' tone is slightly harsher than he wanted it to be. But Remus knows damn well how James acts when Lily is around. It seems terribly unfair of him to taunt him like that in her presence.

"Well, go and get it then, we'll still be here when you come back."

"Right. Yes. I'll just go then. See you in a second."

James takes a step backwards, and collides into Rohit Patel for the second time today.

"Are you doing this on purpose?" the seventh-year Ravenclaw asks, somewhat angrily.

Now, Rohit Patel is normally a pretty laid-back person, but James has seen him on the Quidditch pitch. His calm demeanour can turn into fury and wrath fairly quickly. Last year, the Ravenclaws had fought a nasty, vicious match against the Slytherins, who'd spent hours and hours trying to send every single Ravenclaw player to the Hospital Wing. And Rohit Patel, a beater, had more or less just snapped and had burst open Mulciber's kneecap with a Bludger. He'd deserved it. Of course he had. But the scene had been gruesome and Mulciberk had almost fell off his broomstick. James has not dared underestimate Rohit Patel's ruthlessness ever since.

"I'm sorry, Patel. I didn't see you there. You alright?" James asks, putting his right hand on Patel's shoulder. He might be two years older than him, but James is already taller than him. He looks ridiculous, with his scrawny knees and gangly limbs. His mum has had to order him new robes twice this year, he just keeps outgrowing them so quickly you'd think he's going to end up taller than Hagrid.

"No I'm not alright, Potter. Watch where you're going!" Rohit Patel sneers at him, shaking James' hand off of his shoulder, which takes James aback. Yes, he'd seen Patel get angry before. But never against him, and never out of the Quidditch pitch.

"Merlin, Patel, I didn't do it on purpose, alright?" James says, defensively, his hand frozen in mid-air. He's unsure what to do next. He doesn't want to anger Patel further. He quite likes him, from the few interactions they've had in the past five years. He's always been a fair opponent on the Quidditch pitch, he'd never even once used a foul against Gryffindor.

"Just bugger off, Potter. I don't have time for this."

"Fine! Move out the way then!"

It's James' turn to get angry, now. Truth be told, he hasn't been having the best couple of days. And so, and although he'd be more than willing to put up with Patel's change in attitude on any other day, today is not that day.

"Well I'd be able to move out the way if you weren't blocking the bloody fucking way out!"

"Language! Patel, what's wrong with you today? I don't want to have to dodge points." Margareta Catchlove intervenes. James has never been happier to see the blonde, perpetually pink-skinned, plump girl. She's a Ravenclaw too, just like Rohit Patel, but she's a fifth year. James usually doesn't pay much attention to her, but he's very very happy to see her right now. She doesn't wait for Patel to answer her and lightly shoves him aside with a pointed stare. Patel just sighs and huffs and goes to sit on a bench nearby.

"Potter, here, Dumbledore told me to give you this note," she tells James, shoving the folded up piece of parchment into his palm.

And that, too, takes him very aback. He hasn't been in the headmaster's office much. Maybe twice, in the past five years. And the last time was because he'd made the stupid mistake of saving the Greasy Git's sorry arse. James starts thinking that he might have done something terribly wrong.

"Here," Catchlove insists and James closes his hand over the note, hiding it in one of his robes' pockets, barely even aware of his own actions.

"See you later, then," she continues.

"What?" he asks her, and his voice sounds faint. He's not really been listening to her.

"At the party," she answers hushedly, taking a step towards him.

"Oh, yes – right, yes, the party. You'll be there?"

"Yes," she answers, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Remus invited me."

"Oh, alright. I'll see you in the common room then, won't I?"

She lets out a light chuckle. "Yeah, see you later."

James turns around for a second, to check on Remus and Lily, and finds the latter staring at him. Only, her eyes dart away as soon as she notices his eyes on her and he, too, has to look away to avoid making an utter fool out of himself in the middle of the Great Hall.

He goes and gets his plate, and assorted cutlery, and almost forgets Dumbledore's note for a second. The Great Hall is as noisy as it always is, but he doesn't really hear much of the noise. It's like his ears are wearing invisible ear muffs. That's exactly what he's feeling like.

He walks down the pathway again, ignoring a couple of first years who are having some sort of battle with their food, aiming it at each other's faces and cheering when the other gets to score points. James sort of misses the days when he was eleven and didn't care about anything much. He spots Remus and Lily fairly quickly, they're talking and Lily chuckles and James' heart seems to have been _Reducio_ -ed for a second or maybe _Confringo-_ ed, James isn't sure of the details.

James goes and sits down next to Remus silently, putting down his plate.

"Took you long enough," Remus tells him, a smile fading away from his face.

"Yeah, dunno. I bumped into Patel. He's not in a great mood, as it turns out."

"What did Catchlove want? I saw her talking to you."

She's talking to him. Again. Lily Evans is making conversation with him. And she doesn't seem to have been coerced into this either. It's baffling, needless to say, and it makes him quite terrified to say another word. He doesn't want to ruin this. Surely, him opening up his mouth right now would ruin everything.

He tries to look her in the eye, but it's too difficult. Instead, James settles his gaze on his plate. His chicken roast is delicious. Although it's likely gone cold by now.

"Dunno, really. Dumbledore wants to see me apparently? She had a note," he ends up saying. It's not at all what he wanted to say, it's not quite as elocutionary as he'd hoped or tried to be. "Haven't opened it up – the note, I mean – though, so can't be sure."

"Oh bloody hell. We're screwed," Lily swears, clearly unaware of the fact that James is feeling like a complete failure, two feet away from her.

James is slightly? No. Definitely not. Mildly... completely? Yes, completely startled, to say the least. It's not at all like Lily to swear. At least, he doesn't think it is. She's always so demure and polite. James has always thought her to be the complete opposite of himself in that manner, and in a few others too. Where he was brash, she was reasoned. Where he was boisterous and reckless, she was measured and prudent. Or so he'd thought until today. Lily Evans didn't get into fights. She'd never had, not once, in the past five years. But then again, Lily Evans never did talk to him either. And yet, here he was.

"Do you think he knows?" she continues. And James has no idea what she's talking about.

"Who?"

"Dumbledore!" she says, anxiety straining her voice. "Do you think he knows that I lied to Pomfrey earlier?"

James doesn't really know what to tell her. Dumbledore always seems to know everything about everyone. But James can not think of a way to tell her this without making her lose her mind on the spot. So he doesn't.

"No, he can't know. I mean, surely the arseholes have tried to convince Slughorn and Pomfrey. But we don't even know if they've seen Dumbledore. And Dumbledore wouldn't believe them anyway. Not after what they did to MacDonald. He knows what kind of monsters he's dealing with. If anything, he just wants us in to testify so that he can get them expelled by the end of the week."

That gets a ridiculously tiny smile out of her, but it's worth it anyway. He'll take ridiculously tiny smile over furrowed brows and anxious frowns any day of the week.

"I wish," she sighs. "I'm just scared that they lied about earlier, you know, when I was outside the greenhouses alone, and they…" she goes quiet for a second. But James knows what she was about to say. He wants to get up to go and hug her, but it's not the sort of things they do. So, he stays put, sitting still next to Remus, leaned forward so he can look at her properly. "They could lie and say that I'm the one who attacked them," she continues. "Their parents are rich and they've got friends in the Ministry…"

"Dumbledore would never believe that," Remus intervenes. "He knows you. Why do you think he picked you to be a Prefect?"

She shrugs, and the frown is back. James opens Dumbledore's note instinctively, and glances down at it to look for information. He's not really reading it, it's more like he's staring at a wall. "After dinner" the note says. It's not specific at all.

He's lost a bit of the conversation, for a second. But he doesn't really register that.

"I'll go with you," James tells Lily out of the blue, barely looking at her.

"What?" she asks him.

"To Dumbledore's office. He wants to see me after dinner too. I'll lie if I have to. If you want, I'll say I was there, and I saw them hurt you. I don't care. I saw you go through the doors, at least, that's true. It'll only be half a lie. And, um, you know… I mean, I don't know if you... d'you know who my father is?"

She's been more or less gaping at him for the entire time he's been speaking, but she's just closed her mouth. She looks quite stern.

"Yes, Potter. I'm not dumb. Everyone knows who your father is."

"I didn't say you were…" he tries to tell her.

"Besides, I'm pretty sure you spent all of our first year talking about him, I'm sure even the ghosts and paintings know about him by now."

There it is. He's just said the wrong things. It didn't take him very long now, did it? Of course he was going to ruin this. Of course she was going to bring up his foolish behaviour from when he was an eleven year-old idiot who was so proud of having Fleamont Potter as his dad that he'd just brag about him to everyone who was willing to listen. Which, apparently, happened when Lily Evans was around.

James doesn't quite know what to do. So he doesn't do anything.

Soon enough, Lily sighs. And Remus and her pick up a conversation again. From time to time, Remus tries to get James to talk too. He answers, because his mum would be mad at him if he didn't, but keeps his answers short. They finish eating, get up, and James follows.

"I'll leave you two to it, then," Remus says. "I'll go and join up with Sirius and Peter."

"You know where they are?" James asks him, and Remus nods in answer. "Alright then, guess I'll see you in the common room."

And so, James Potter ended up having to be all alone in Lily Evans' company for the first time in his entire life.

Lily Evans' evening has not, so far, at all gone as planned. But it's fine, really, it is.

She might just be slightly terrified of being in James Potter's presence all alone is all. Nothing too alarming. He's not really been looking at her during their short journey here, and he also made up an excuse to avoid sitting next to her at the table earlier. Which might sound totally and completely rude of him, but Lily knows why he had done it. She glances up, tries to get him to look at her. In vain. He's looking at his shoes, or the floor, Lily's not sure. He always seems so boisterous, from what little information Lily knows and has gathered about him over the years. This does not seem typical of him. But then again, his behaviour, yesterday, had not been typical either, and yet, it was so far away from his current behaviour. Lily doesn't really know what to think about it all. They've not talked about yesterday. Maybe he doesn't want to either. He's walking right before her and she follows his step fairly closely until she stops dead in her tracks.

"I'm sorry," she says, seemingly out of the blue. But really, it's been on her mind for hours now.

"I'm sorry," he says at the same exact time, turning around to face her.

There's a pause. It turns the air thick and heavy, Lily's pretty sure there's a spell for that somewhere in an old grimoire, and it makes it incredibly hard to breathe. They've come to a halt and he's standing very still and very close to her, which is terrifying in its own right.

"What are you sorry for?" he asks her, and she gets to look at him properly for the first time since this morning. His eyes might be mesmerizing, but just barely, and they're hidden by his glasses, anyway, so really, it's nothing to be concerned with.

Except her heart skips this tiny stupid beat, but she ignores that. Along with the breath that gets caught in her throat. That's just ridiculous. She's not about to pay those sort of things any mind.

"This morning," she begins, pauses for a second, and then swallows hard. "When you asked me why I lied to Pomfrey, remember?"

She waits for his answer, and he nods. They're still staring at each other. It's like her eyes are refusing to lose a contest she doesn't remember entering in the first place.

"Yeah. Well I lied, I mean, you knew that already. Right? That's why you've been mad at me all day. And I'm sorry. It's just that… You know the real answer was a bit stupid and I didn't want to embarrass myself."

"What?" he croaks out, he's blinking excessively, and one of his hands flies up to his hair to burrow itself in it.

Lily's throat is acting up again.

"What are you talking about? I'm not… I'm not mad at… Why would you think I'm mad at you? That's just… I can't – couldn't… I mean. I wouldn't be. Mad at you, that is."

There's this feeling inside her guts, she doesn't quite know what it means. Maybe it's sheer panic, maybe it's something she's never felt before. She's not quite sure. It sort of feels like panic, but then again, she does not want to run away. Which is usually a telltale sign she's terrified. She's fine just looking at him, like that. Which is fine, somewhat. It's just that the feeling just won't go away is all. Which might be a bit bothersome in the long run.

What Lily Evans does not know yet, and will not know, for another year or so at least, is that this moment and this strange feeling in her guts is what she will then identify as her first romantic inclinations towards James Potter.

This sudden and inexplicable realization, and its inevitably dreadful aftermath, will all happen on a cloudy, rainy, terrible day, in the middle of autumn. And on that very same day Lily Evans will confess to James Potter that she has been in love with him for quite some time, actually. She'll identify the feeling in the midst of hundreds of moments that would come to define their friendship, and their subsequent relationship.

But Lily Evans does not know any of this. And so, she pathetically answers, "oh, I mean, thanks."

Which is not exactly what she had planned on saying at all. But James Potter does not seem to realize it, too caught up in his own thoughts. His eyes keep searching for something, he looks so lost one might wonder whether or not someone has erased his memory.

"Why would you… Why did you think that?" he asks, his hand still hidden in the messy mop of hair that sits on top of his head, and Lily finally lowers her gaze, devastatingly slowly so.

"You'll have a laugh, if I tell you," she mumbles to the floor.

"Of course I won't," he tells her, and she thinks his tone is meant to be reassuring, but it's not really.

She wishes he weren't so damn close to her, because she'd very much like to be able to breathe properly right now.

"As I said, I lied, earlier. When I told you that I'd lied to Pomfrey because I wanted them to get punished. That's not why I did it. It's just that you seemed to really mean it. You know?"

"What?" he doesn't seem to understand what she's saying. It's fine really, she doesn't really know what she's talking about either.

"Do you… Remember what you said to Yaxley when you ran towards him?"

"Not really, no I was too caught up in the idea of pummelling him to death."

She shakes her head and exhales, tries to gather her thoughts, really.

"Anyway, you just… You defended me. And I'd been feeling so terrified and so alone… And just… I'm sorry, I shouldn't be telling you this. It's ridiculous."

There's this prickling sensation in her eyes and her mouth twitches downwards and… Bloody shit she does not want to cry right now.

Potter stays silent, and after a while she looks up at him, tears still prickling her eyes, and he's at least a foot taller than her, or so it seems, from this angle, but he's staring down at her. There's this expression on his face and his eyes are slightly more mesmerizing than she'd like them to be and the feeling deep in her guts intensifies. Lily is somewhat, slightly, a smidgen, terrified of finding out what it means and so she blinks and lowers her gaze once more to stare straight ahead which means she's now staring at his neck, or more correctly the collar of his shirt and his tie. Because there's this beauty spot right there and that's not exactly what she wants to focus on. So, his tie it is. So, when she sees him swallow hard, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down, it's an accident. She was not looking at his neck. At all. And it's at this precise moment that James Potter rudely decides that it's time to let out a long, slow, measured breath which tickles the top of her head.

And it's not like she shivers or anything.

"I'm sorry," he says, his voice barely a whisper.

"Why?" she asks him, craning her neck to look at him once more.

"For yesterday. I'm so sorry."

"Oh," she lets out before closing her eyes.

Yesterday was a mess. She didn't think he'd ever want to mention that.

"It was very stupid," he starts again, taking a step backwards. She's still got her eyes close, but she can feel a wave of cold air replace his body's heat. That's how she knows. She opens her eyes to verify. "What I did. I shouldn't have involved you in all this."

"I know you only did it to make him mad, I get it. Don't worry."

His jaw clenches for a second. He's dropped his hand from his hair, she hadn't realized it until now because he's sort of raised his hands halfway up and seems to be stuck in position.

"That's not what I meant. I – I shouldn't have said what I said to you. I'm sorry that he took it out on you. If I hadn't said what I –"

"That's not on you. That's on him. You're not responsible for this," she cuts him short, staring him right in the eye determinedly.

"But he wouldn't have said –"

"He would have. Sooner or later. I'd rather it be now than later."

"Do you?" he sounds genuinely surprised.

"Yes. I should have done it earlier. I didn't want to realize how bad it'd gotten."

She tenses up suddenly, looks away, and clutches the hem of her sleeves with both hands, realizing only now that she's been telling him too much information. They're not friends, Potter and her. They don't even talk to each other.

She begins to question why they're not friends. If it's because of who they are, two very, very different people with seemingly opposite personalities or if it is just because her former best mate loathed him to bits. They've never talked before. Not like this. And yet it seems so easy, she feels free to tell him anything.

That's not how it was with… Snape. She'd always feared his response, his anger. He'd get angry at the most innocuous things. He hated it when she brought up her friend Mary, when she talked about her rounds with Remus, when she talked about how she'd helped a couple of second years with their homework, when she mentioned having to deal with Black and Potter's pranks in the common room or how Peter Pettigrew had made her laugh when he ate one of those fake candies from Zonko's that turned your hair into colourful feathers. There wasn't much she could tell him about, truth be told. Not even her family. Because they were Muggles and she'd known, deep down, that she couldn't bring them up without it turning into him ranting about how Muggles should be held responsible for what their ancestors did to wizards and how it was time to reverse the roles.

"It's not your fault either," Potter's voice tells her, and she startles, only now realizing that she must have stopped talking a long time ago.

"What?" she manages to croak out.

"It's not your fault," he repeats, one of his hand coming towards her before he stops himself and shoves it back in his hair. "He was long gone, you couldn't have stopped it."

"I know that. Don't think I don't know that," she begins to get angry now. How dare he insinuate that she's hung up on this?

He sighs, the hand that had been buried into his hair goes to ruffle it, and she's got half a mind to reach up on her toes to stop him.

"We should go to Dumbledore's office, he's probably waiting for us."

"Right."

He takes another step backwards, and so she takes one forward, indicating that she's following his lead. He begins to turn around on his heels, so as to avoid falling and injuring himself, she presumes.

They walk in silence for a little while. It makes her terribly uncomfortable. She doesn't know James Potter very well, but from what she can tell, he's not the sort of bloke who just stays silent. And she doesn't really like it either, if she were to be quite honest. It makes her skin itch with unease. She's biting her lips. She's got to say something.

"You know," she begins hesitantly.

"Hmm?" he inquires twisting his head around so he can look at her.

She begins to smile a little, amused by what she's about to tell him.

"You're probably going to turn bald before you turn thirty if you keep doing that to your hair," she tells him, nodding in the direction of his head for emphasis.

"No I won't!" he tells her, indignant. He's stopped dead in his tracks and she's walking past him, her smile broadening.

"Sure, keep telling yourself that!"

"I won't!" he insists, and she turns around so she can look at him, walking backwards and now beaming smugly.

"I think I can already see it thinning a little. Right there," she points towards a non-existent bald spot, and stops walking. He's a bit too far away from her now if she wants to keep talking to him without having to shout.

Both of his hands come flying up to try and assess the situation. He seems to be trying to fix the issue.

It takes him a solid ten seconds to figure out that there's not one hair missing from his head. She knows because he lets out a small "oh" and lets both of his hands fall.

She begins to laugh and his cheeks tint a flushed pink. He's blushing. She just made him blush. This is funnier to her than it should be.

"Are you – are you having a go at me?" he asks her, bewildered.

"I wouldn't dare," she answers, giggling.

He shakes his head, clearly puzzled.

"Well, come on now, get walking. We wouldn't want Dumbledore to wait for us now, would we?" she taunts him, she can not stop smiling, somehow.

He takes a few tentative steps forward.

"Oh go on, I'm not going to bite you."

"I wasn't aware this was a possibility," he says with a smirk, having suddenly regained his wit back.

"Gross," she answers, exaggeratedly twisting her face to show him her disgust.

That gets a laugh out of him.

Once they – finally – get to Dumbledore's office, she's still smiling and he's still blushing. For different reasons, but still.

Her smile fades quickly though, once she sees the look on Dumbledore's face.

"Ah, you're both here, good," he says in a semi-jovial tone. But Lily isn't so easily fooled. He doesn't look jovial. Not at all. "I was not aware the two of you were friends," he says, as if them walking in at the same time means they've shared their deepest secrets to one another.

"We're not!" they both say at the same time, though Potter sounds less vehement about his answer. She can't blame him, she's a fantastic mate.

"Ah, well then I apologize for being presumptuous," he says evenly. "Well, do come and sit down. I have two perfectly comfortable chairs that I never get to sit in right here, you might as well enjoy them," Dumbledore continues, when he realizes that they're still standing by the door and have not moved an inch, pointing towards the two high-backed wooden chairs that sit opposite Dumbledore's.

Lily takes a few tentative steps forward. She doesn't know whether or not Potter is following suit and the possibility of having to face Dumbledore all alone makes the situation seem so much worse than it should be. But she hears Potter's footsteps growing closer and sees his shadow on the floor. He's not too far behind. The walk towards the armchairs only takes a few seconds, but they feel like ages. It might be the anxiousness in her stomach talking, though.

Dumbledore's got this tiny smile on his lips and Lily thinks that this is worse than him frowning.

Potter has walked past her and settled in the chair on the left when slowly sits down on the one on the right.

"So," Dumbledore begins. "I presume you both know why you're here."

And Lily swallows, hard. She doesn't nod. Because nodding would be rude. And she doesn't know _why_ she's here, exactly.

"It has come to my attention that you've both had an altercation with some of your fellow classmates today."

And there it is. She might just as well drop dead right now. Dumbledore thinks it's her fault. He knows she lied to Pomfrey, too. Bloody hell if she gets expelled because of _that_ she might never recover.

"I have met with Messrs. Yaxley, Snape and Mulciber. Now, Miss Evans I do believe that the last time we talked, you and Mister Snape seemed to be getting along quite nicely."

She shakes her head, because she doesn't quite know how to tell Dumbledore that her former friend has just turned out to be a blood-purist prick who cares more about Dark Magic than he ever did for her.

"We've..." she begins, unsure. "We've had a falling out," she decides to say, finally. It sort of explains the situation without really describing the traumatizing event that led to it.

"Ah, teenage-hood," Dumbledore answers, as if this was a good enough reason for a falling out. She gathers that it might be, were they not in this type of situation.

Lily can feel Potter's eyes peering into the side of her skull.

"So," the headmaster continues, as Lily lowers her head. "Do you wish to tell me more about this altercation?"

'Not really, no,' Lily wants to answer. Thankfully, it seems that Potter does want to tell Dumbledore what happened.

"Sir," he says confidently. "It wasn't her fault. She never did anything to them. She can't get in trouble for this! They're the ones who attacked her and insulted her!"

He's doing it again, Lily thinks, and she can feel her stomach doing strange things she cannot remember ever feeling before today. Why on earth is James Potter defending her? In front of the Headmaster of all people!

"I never actually did think so," Dumbledore tells him, and Lily raises her head sharply. "I never did think Miss Evans had attacked anyone. Of course, Messrs. Yaxley and Mulciber did try and persuade me otherwise. But, after the incident that involved Miss MacDonald earlier this year, I had reasons to suspect they would not be entirely honest with me."

"And were they?" Potter asks again and Lily is quite surprised to see how open and honest he is with Dumbledore.

"I'm afraid not, Mister Potter. However, I do suspect there was a bit of truth in what they told me about you."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Mister Snape, in particular, seemed adamant, in his telling of the events, that you were the one who attacked Messrs. Yaxley and Mulciber. I have also been informed by Mister Snape that Mister Black was partially responsible for this scuffle. However, it appears that Miss Evans and Madam Pomfrey's testimonies conflict with Mister Snape's version of the events. Since I do believe to be Madam Pomfrey entirely reliable in the matter, it would be unfair of me to presume that Miss Evans' testimony would not be so as well. I do believe you witnessed the events, Miss Evans, did you not?"

"I did, sir."

Dumbledore nods solemnly.

"As you do know, Mister Potter, Mister Snape's resentment towards you seems to have grown increasingly over the past few months. And such resentment can sometimes affect one's perception of an event such as this one."

Lily _had_ noticed, back then, before everything, how Se… Snape had begun to whine about Potter and Black more often, but she had not thought to ask him _why_. Had something happened between Snivellus and Potter? Had she not noticed? How could she have not noticed, back then? And how does Dumbledore know about this if even she doesn't? Does he know something she doesn't? Did something happen? Was Dumbledore there to witness it? But surely… Surely he would have told her. He would have.

Lily's mind is reeling.

Dumbledore doesn't ask her what happened. He doesn't seem to think he needs to. Does he really trust her so blindly? She lied to Pomfrey. She did. But if what Madam Pomfrey had told Dumbledore was enough to prevent Potter and Black from getting in trouble on her behalf, it seems like her testimony isn't really what matters the most.

"And so?" Potter asks, or rather, demands, judging from his tone.

"And so, Mister Potter, it seems that you have held up your word to me."

Lily doesn't understand what her Headmaster is referring to. But Potter's bravery is both intimidating and invigorating, in a way. It makes her feel less terrified of the whole situation.

"Sir, I don't mean to be rude," she hears her own voice say aloud, which snaps her out of her reverie. "But why are we here exactly if you know they lied?"

"Ah, you're not being rude at all, Miss Evans. This is a fair question, after all. Well, I asked you here because I heard some frightening stories about you walking into the Great Hall covered in what seemed to be blood. Then Madam Pomfrey told me you came to seek her help earlier on because you seemed to be disoriented and injured. I presumed that this incident of yours was correlated with the altercation Madam Pomfrey witnessed outside the Hospital Wing's doors, since it appears that Mister Yaxley was also in need of her expert assistance at the same time."

Lily would like to say that she finds it hard to swallow, but the truth is that it's impossible. She can't swallow, she can barely breathe and she feels frozen, like some immovable statue on this ridiculously high-backed armchair. It's funny how panic can feel so cold, how feelings have a temperature. This is freezing. Anger is boiling.

"Did something else happen to you today, Miss Evans?"

There's this long, heavy, burden-filled pause in the air. Lily exhales slowly.

"Yes," she admits, her voice considerably more fragile than she'd like it to be.

She sends a tiny sideways glance towards James Potter, and courage fills her veins. He's so much braver than she'll ever be.

She tries not to stare at him. So she stares at her hands, then at a quill on Dumbledore's desk and finally, she sets her gaze on her Headmaster's concerned face, and she tells him, everything. Everything she can remember, at least.

She'll have time to be weak and scared once she gets back into the Common Room.

Both Dumbledore and Potter stay silent during her monologue, although she notices the way Potter's hands clench the chair's arm rail. He's still angry at Yaxley. Lily doesn't feel angry right now, there's this sort of strange serenity that soothes her. She's fine, right now. They can't hurt her here.

"And then I think I walked into the Great Hall, at least that's what Sirius Black told me once Madam Pomfrey had healed me. After that, he… Sirius Black, that is, he took me to the Hospital Wing. We were about to leave when the… The, well, the others, came in. So we left, and well, Potter, James Potter, he joined us," she mumbles, pointing vaguely in his direction. "And I think he could tell you what happened next better than I could."

Except Potter doesn't tell Dumbledore anything about what happened.

"Sir," he says with such determination she has to look at him. "Tell me you're going to get them expelled."

"Alas, Mister Potter, things are not always that easy. Mister Yaxley is leaving Hogwarts at the end of the week, as he is, after all, a 7th year and will be graduating. As for Mister Mulciber, the school board has already been averted of his previous misconducts toward other students."

"And?" Potter insists, and Lily's still looking at him as he stares fiercely at Dumbledore.

Lily thinks Godric Gryffindor himself would envy his bravery. She would never dare talk to Dumbledore like this.

"It appears that the school board has decided that his misconducts were not unforgivable."

"Do you mean what happened to Mary MacDonald?" Potter asks. "That was forgivable?"

"That is indeed what the school board had decided yes. Although he has been placed under a trial period ever since, and I do believe that engaging in a fight with other students outside the Hospital Wing constitutes an infraction of that trial period. I will be meeting with the school board tomorrow at noon, I do believe you will both be enjoying your last trip of the year in Hogsmeade?"

Both Potter and her nod, which seems to satisfy Dumbledore, because he smiles.

"Good, enjoy it. You should go and join your fellow Gryffindors in your Common Room, I think it's time," he tells them, getting up to lead them out of his office. He winks at Potter, as if he knows something else that Lily doesn't.

It's vaguely frustrating, but Lily has to remember that she does not know James Potter, at all. She only knows of him. And she's heard, as Dumbledore had said earlier, "conflicting testimonies". Both Marlene and Dorcas swear he's a great person. Snivellus, on the other hand… Hated him. Positively, irremediably hated him. Not that she'd made an effort to try and get to know him, either. He acted to immaturely during class, always laughing – loudly, very loudly – during class, always jinxing students and playing pranks on his friends. He was reckless and immature, that she knew. But he was also so brave it made her feel ashamed to even have been sorted into Gryffindor in the first place.

They get up from their chairs, Dumbledore bids them goodnight and the door to his office closes slowly behind them. She follows Potter down the spiral staircase, still deep in thought.

They're out into the corridor, now, Potter is walking a few steps in front of her.

"Alright, Evans?" he asks her, twisting his head around to look at her and slowing his pace to let her catch up with him.

"Yeah," she answers. And she thinks she is. Sort of. "It's been a long day is all."

"Well I hope you won't mind the party in the Common Room."

"It's today?" she groans and rubs her eyes.

"Yeah, I know."

She's too tired for a party. She'd forgotten about it altogether. She'd thought it was set for tomorrow.

"I can't believe I forgot. Dorcas has been talking about it for the past few weeks, too. So that's what Dumbledore meant… Oh bloody hell, I'm not dealing with anyone's puke tonight."

That makes Potter laugh.

"You should go on without me, I'm too tired to make it to the tower, anyway," Lily complains. She really doesn't want to have to deal with having a good third of the castle's students crammed into the Common Room.

"I don't think Filch will let you, though. Trust me, I've tried that before."

"Are the first years going to be here?" she asks, instantly defeated by the prospect of being caught out of bed by Filch. The curfew is coming, sooner rather than later.

"No, it's fourth years and up."

"Fine," she sighs, _concedes,_ really. She's too tired to argue. "But I get to hoard the couch all evening."

"The couch?" Potter asks her, half laughing.

"Yeah, it's a damn good couch."


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Pleased to Meet You Part 1**

"This castle is too big," she sighs. "My feet hurt like hell."

"I know," he answers. "It's so easy to get lost."

"D'you… Do you remember our first year?" she asks him, clearly unsure.

"Yeah, why?"

"Well," she tells him, pausing for a second. "I used to get lost all the time. And once, you know, after the first few weeks had passed and we'd all more or less begun to settle in, I got lost again. We had Transfiguration, except – well, I didn't really have friends back then. Not in Gryffindor, at least. And so I had no one to help me find my way. And I wandered for a while up and down the stairs and into some terrifying-looking corridors. I finally found my way, but I was late nonetheless. And McGonagall was so mad at me and I remember you telling her it wasn't my fault if I was late."

"Did I? I don't remember."

"Yeah you did. And I was so surprised, because you were already fighting with him, you know? But you still defended me."

James doesn't have to ask who 'him' is. He knows. He wants to apologize, again. Can he ever apologize enough? Probably not.

"I don't know what happened over the years," she continues, sighing and slowing her pace. "We're just fifteen, you know? How does it feel like the world's about to end any minute now?"

James slows down a little, but he doesn't know what to say. The world doesn't feel like it's ending for him. This is just the beginning. There are so many more pranks to play out, so many uncontrollable bits of laughter, so many jokes and adventures. His life is only beginning. The Marauders are not going down any time soon. He's never felt more like freedom itself. He's just fifteen. There's nothing to worry about when you're fifteen.

"What do you mean?" he asks her, one of his hands coming up to bury itself in his hair.

"Nothing," she answers, closing her eyes for a second a shaking her head, as though shaking the thoughts away.

"I really can't wait to get out of these bloody clothes though," she continues, changing the subject altogether. James isn't blind, he knows what she's doing. But he lets her do it, it's not his place, really.

"Quite literally – bloody, I mean. We scourgified the hell out of them, earlier, but they still feel icky," she tells him. Because it's easier than talking about something else. But really, he doesn't blame her. She doesn't trust him. It's completely normal. He shouldn't feel this tiny, bothersome pang in his stomach. And yet.

"You haven't had the chance to change yet?" he asks her, letting her lead the conversation.

"Not really, no. I went for a bath in the Prefect's bathroom, but forgot to bring a change of clothes. Merlin it's been a long day."

"I'm sorry you'll have to sit through a party."

"Oh it's fine, I'll have the couch!" she laughs.

"I'll try and cover for you, you know, if you need me to."

"That's nice. But I think you ought to change too. You got this slight tear in your trousers."

Panicked, he glances down, trying to find the tear.

"Where?" he asks her, staring down at his pants before realizing that she's been having another go at him.

He stares at her, but doesn't say anything, not even remotely annoyed by her childishness. Merlin, she's something else alright.

"Gotcha!" she says, her tinkling laugh echoing around the corridor.

Merlin how her eyes shine with laughter, how her mouth… No. He can't think about this. He can't. He'll just ruin everything if he does. This day has been going a thousand times better than it should have for him. He'd never imagined she'd be talking to him like this, and especially not after yesterday.

But here she is, the prettiest girl in the entire world – Aphrodite be damned – and he cannot stop staring.

So when they get to the Fat Lady's portrait, he doesn't realize it, at first.

Because Lily Evans is still talking, and she's still laughing, and so is he, at least, he thinks so. But his brain is too mesmerized for him to realize what he's doing. How did he survive the way up there? He has no idea.

He only realizes where they are when the portrait flings open and he hears the roaring music, laughter and loud voices booming.

Oh it's a party alright.

The room is crammed to the roof with students, Sirius must have tried an engorging spell on it because it looks slightly wonky, but bigger than usual. He always does this, James muses, tries out spells and tricks. The furniture seems to have evaporated, though, or maybe he just can't see it because there are too many people.

He sees Lily walk right in, and he follows her into the crowd. As soon as the common room's door closes shut behind him, the noise surrounds him, engulfs him. There is nothing left but sound and sight, the bright red and gold warming his insides with comfort. This is familiar ground. He knows how this works. This is his crowd, his people. And _his people_ come up to him, greet him, ask him how he's doing, how he thinks he's done on his O.W.L.S., that sort of things. He's fairly well-known around the school. That's what being the best Quidditch player the school's seen in a long while does to a person. They like him for that. They love him for his relentless hatred of the Slytherins. They think he's funny because he plays pranks and stands up to the future Death-Eaters. He's seen the way the terrified 1st years Muggle-Borns look at him, sometimes. They admire him, clear as day.

There's not much to keep him grounded, that he can admit to himself. He loves being loved. It's a weakness in its own right, sure, but it's also the most motivating thing in the world. He doesn't score all those points during matches just for the thrill of it – sure, sure, it's enthralling – but the best feeling in the world is hearing the roaring cheers and applause of the crowd whenever the Quaffle goes through the hoop. This is why he's so good at Quidditch. It has to be.

This is also why he loves parties in the Gryffindor common room.

He's lost sight of Lily, because Benjy Fenwick talked to him for a second too long as he was trying to go and find Sirius. He'd tried searching for her in the crowd, but he hasn't had much luck thus far. And she's usually fairly easy to spot. He knows this, because he always looks for her in the Gryffindor stands at every single match he's played. Her hair is always how he finds her. She can't very well hide when her hair is shining like glowing embers in the night.

Sirius gets to him first. He knows this because someone's hurled themselves at his back and has half-tackled him to the ground. It's Sirius' drunken way of saying hi. He does this a lot, actually. And James knows _this_ for a fact because he nearly knocked his head onto the trunk at the end of his bed the week beforehand when Sirius had decided that James had been missing for too long – he'd been in the bathroom, which was apparently inexcusable behaviour – and he'd jumped onto him and they'd both taken a dive.

Sirius hadn't even apologized for that. There was no need to. They'd both shared the remnants of a bottle of Firewhisky on the wooden floor of their dormitory as they played a game of Exploding Snaps. He'd won, because Sirius had been drunker than him and his reflexes had been complete and utter shite.

"Well there you are mate!" Sirius screams into his ear, nearly blasting his eardrums right off as he shakes his shoulders and twists him around to "greet" him properly.

"How are you so drunk already?" James asks him back.

"WHAT?" Sirius yells again, and James leans away from him to try and avoid becoming deafer than an old bat at such a young age.

"How are you so drunk?" James resorts to yelling too, because the music is too loud and… Oh Merlin this thing is already nearly out of control. Sirius' hand comes and grabs the back of his head a bit too roughly, slightly shaking James' head as he gets closer to yell in his ear once again.

"Oh! Yeah, got a heads first, didn't we? Pete and I, when we got back from Hogsmeade."

"Why are there so many people here?" James yells again, putting a hand on Sirius' shoulder and shoving him lightly away. Just a few inches, really, because Sirius reeks of Firewhisky and some sort of mulled wine.

"I don't know, Moony invited a lot of Ravenclaws, I really don't like 'em anyway."

"Right. Hey, have you seen Evans?"

"No. But did you snog her? You did, didn't you, huh?" Sirius says smugly as he stumbles a bit backwards.

James tells him he didn't, but Sirius ignores him and continues on. "I told you she liked you didn't I? And Moony – Moony told me, y'know, that you and her 've been strolling 'round the castle like the pair of trollops that you are."

"Remus said _what_?"

"It's fine, mate, don't worry 'bout it," his drunken mate tells him, patting him nonchalantly on the chest with one hand and steadying himself on his shoulder with the other.

"Oy! Oy Remus, mate!" James screams as loudly as he can, as he spots him nearby. Remus hears him, manages to wave at him and begins to make his way towards their spot near the place where one of the armchairs usually rest.

"Oh don't rat me out!" Sirius pouts petulantly.

"I'm not! What have you done with the furniture, by the way?"

"It's against the walls, we needed space."

"Merlin this is a mess."

"Hey!" Remus greets him, tapping him on the shoulder. "How was the Dumbledore meeting?"

James shrugs. "T'was alright I suppose."

They share a glance. Remus seems to understand immediately. Now isn't the time to talk about this.

James spots Marlene McKinnon in the crowd, she's dancing and laughing with someone he can't recognize from the back but she waves at him and smiles back at her. Sirius shouts something lewd at her that would make James' mum turn red in anger. Marlene flips him off with both hands, which, in turn, makes Sirius laugh loudly in James' ears. He hears Remus' voice mumble something through the music, but can't make out what he's said.

"What?"

"Evans. I saw Lily Evans. She went upstairs, what did you do to her?"

"Nothing!" James defends himself instinctively.

"You know what you need?" Sirius tells him, raising his left hand to dangle a bottle containing an amber-coloured liquid which could not have been anything other than Firewhisky. "You need a drink, mate," he finishes, pushing the bottle into James' chest.

And Merlin if he doesn't think he needs one.

Lily Evans is a wreck of a young lady. That much has to be said.

There she stands, alone, half-naked in the middle of her dormitory, hurling clothes and shoes out of her trunk. Today has not been a good day. And this particular moment makes everything a tiny, smidgeon, bit worse.

She can not, for the life of her, find anything decent to wear to a party.

A party that was happening right beneath her bare feet. Or just a few levels below, actually. But she can still hear the music and loud chatter. Lily needs a drink. A good one. And something to wear.

Bloody hell being fifteen was a nasty burden.

She's found a couple of decent-looking sweaters, although the weather, which has been way too warm for weeks now for them to be wearable, means that she _has to_ hurl them across the room. A pity, really.

It has been a good ten minutes of clothes-hurling and disappointed sighs already and so, when the bathroom door swings open and Jane makes her way into the dormitory Lily turns around sharply, ready for a fight if necessary.

Jane's eyes are pink and puffy, but Lily really does not want to think or care about this right now. This is none of her business. And that's all Jane's fault. Well, it's Mary's too, but Mary isn't here, and so she can not be blamed for everything that's wrong in the world.

"Sorry to interrupt your pity party," Lily tells Jane rather coldly, not even looking at her and turning around to resume her hunt for decent-looking clothes.

Jane doesn't answer at first, she just walks silently past Lily and her bed – and discarded clothes – and goes to sit on her own bed. Lily knows because she can hear her footsteps, and sort of see her from the corner of her left eye. Not that she's looking or that she cares.

Lily's about to give up and just go in her knickers and bra, decency be damned, when Jane speaks up.

"I still have that dress you said you liked," she tells Lily, which makes her turn to look at her sharply.

She doesn't say much, for a second, just keeps staring at Jane, who doesn't lower her gaze either. This would be quite a stand-off – like in those American films she's seen about cowboys and whatnots – if Lily weren't in such a jam right now.

She sighs, resigned and seemingly already jaded by life at the ripe old age of fifteen years and three months old.

"Which one?" she asks, taking a single step in Jane's direction.

"The pink one."

That gets Lily's blood pumping a bit harder because she really really does like that pink dress of Jane's.

"The one with the metal belt?" Lily asks her, to make sure she's talking about the right one.

"Yes. I don't have twenty of those around."

"You kept it?"

Jane doesn't answer, she just gets up from her bed to get to her own trunk, which was sat very neatly at the foot of her bed. Unlike Lily's and her mess. She'd have to clean that up before going back downstairs.

She sort of hopes Potter isn't waiting for her. Not that he'd notice or care if she weren't here. He'd just been kidding, yesterday, after all. He'd told her so on their way back to the Gryffindor Tower. Or, well, he'd told her he regretted it and was sorry about it. Which surely meant he had been just kidding. It was nothing. It had meant nothing. And even if he'd meant it, it had been very very rude of him to try and get her to agree to a date whilst he was having a go at her then best mate.

That was not how things worked.

Plus, he was nothing short of ridiculous and she was decidedly unimpressed by his childish pranks and rowdy habits. And glasses were for nerds and made you instantly undateable anyway, that's what the kids at her Junior Primary school used to say. And they were never wrong.

"There," Jane tells her, holding out her arm to her, the candyfloss-coloured dress held in a fist. Jane has that sad look in her eyes as Lily comes closer that would absolutely break her heart if she weren't still cross.

"Thanks," she answers quietly before turning on her heels.

There's not much more to say, as sad as it is. She points her wand towards her trunk, orders it to ' _Pack!_ ' and gets to the bathroom without looking back, not even once. She just wishes Jane and Mary weren't so stubborn is all. She doesn't hate either of them. She's just tired of everything. She needs a drink. She sure damn hopes Sirius Black did deliver on those promises of good liquor from Hogsmeade he's been making for weeks now. Lily's pretty sure he gets them from Madam Rosmerta in the Three Broomsticks, because she's quite infatuated with him, for some unbeknownst reason. Sirius Black has as much charm as beetle dungs, as far as she's concerned. Plus, he's made fun of her and her red hair too many times over the years.

Oh, now that she thinks about it, he's definitely going to make fun of her for wearing a pink dress. He'd made fun of her the last time she'd borrowed it from Jane, talking about how his cousin Bella always criticized some red-headed Prewett girl from school for wearing pink. She'd gathered he'd meant Gideon and Fabian's sister. Or a relative of theirs, at least. And their hair was a brighter red than hers. She'd been blessed with her grandmother's splendid auburn hair, her mother always told her as she was brushing her hair, back when Lily was a child.

"And so?" she'd told him, unbudging. "I don't really care what your cousin thinks."

And she'd walked away before he'd gotten the chance to say anything else. She really liked that dress anyway, she liked pink and girly things and – her splendid auburn hair be damned – she was not about to miss out on the opportunity to wear something pretty because it displeased Sirius Black and his cousin _Bella_ , of all people.

And so she strips down, gets those gross, sticky clothes off of her, takes a very quick shower, to get rid of the last of the awful feeling, and puts the dress on.

She's not spent more than ten minutes in the bathroom, including the time she's spent re-doing her make-up and trying to sort out her hair – a lost cause, really – before she's out of there, nearly in a rush.

She just needs to find shoes. Shoes that aren't her brown-leather or black-leather derbies. Which is harder than it seems when that's all she's been wearing all year, save for those times she's worn tennis shoes to Hogsmeade and that one pair of semi-flats. She'll have to go for the semi-flats. They're light brown suede, sure, and they might not look the best with the pink shade of her dress but it's fine, really. From what she's seen of the common room, it is way too packed for anyone to even be looking at her feet anyway.

She's about to go dig them up from her freshly re-packed trunk when she hears Jane's semi-discreet sobs. Lily does not want to care about this. This is none of her problem. And yet. And so she pauses for a second, sighs and walks up to Jane's four-poster bed and its closed curtains.

She stops next to it, before deciding to speak up: "Jane?" she asks.

And Jane doesn't answer, not that Lily had actually expected her to do so anyway, but she stops sobbing for a moment to take a shaky, audible breath.

"Jane could you actually tell me what's wrong?"

"I kissed her. I kissed her. You don't understand. I kissed her, Lily."

There's a thick, heavy pause. Because Lily doesn't understand what she's talking about. Who the hell did Jane kiss and what does it have to do with her current state of disarray?

"What are you talking about? Can you open the curtains, at least?"

"No! I look terrible."

"Jane," Lily whines. "Jane, what are you talking about? Who did you kiss?"

"I can't tell you."

She's getting a bit angry now, she'd very much like to go back downstairs to enjoy the last party of the year. Plus, she'd seen Marlene on her way up here, she knows the party is bound to be getting hilariously indecent.

So, she yanks the curtains open and finds Jane curled up on her bed, with one pillow held up to her chest by her clenching hands.

"Jane I've had enough of this, just tell me already."

"It's Mary, alright! I kissed Mary!" Jane screams at her, tears still streaming down her reddened face.

Lily hears herself gasp.

"In the bathroom earlier?" she asks, positively shaking with the excitement of the revelation. She doesn't understand why Jane is crying, but it doesn't really seem to matter now.

"No!" Jane cries out, sniffling and clearly annoyed by Lily's question. "Obviously it wasn't today!"

"Well when was it then?"

"D'you remember Mary's ex-boyfriend's birthday?"

"Paul?" Lily asks, confused. From the little information she's garnered over the months about Jane and Mary's fights, Paul is one of the reasons they're not friends any more.

Jane nods in agreement. "We had this fight, Mary and I. You know how she gets when she has a new boyfriend, it's like the rest of us don't exist at all. And I'd told her she was being stupid and unfair and that when he'd dump her I would not be here to help her any more because she didn't care about me. So why should I, you know? She doesn't care about anyone, not really."

"Oh Jane," Lily sighs, compassionately. "Of course she cares!"

"No. No, you don't get it. You're not friends with her like I was. You think she does but she doesn't. So I told her. And she got really really crossed and she told me I was jealous of her because I'd never had a boyfriend and that I couldn't understand. And I told her, Lily..." she breaks down, right there, in the middle of her sentence. She begins sobbing uncontrollably, her entire body heaving and her breath catching in her throat.

And Lily does not hesitate for a second before she goes to sit on Jane's bed to hug her in her arms.

"Oh, it's alright, it's alright," she soothes, stroking the back of Jane's hair.

"But it's not!" Jane complains, her own arms coming to grab at her own dress on Lily's back.

It takes another couple of minutes for Jane's sobbing to calm down enough for her to continue her story. Lily doesn't know what to do, but she just stays there, stroking Jane's back and telling her everything will be alright. Eventually, Jane takes a shaky breath that does not end up in a broken sob and starts talking again.

"I told her, Lily, I told her I loved her and I kissed her and she let me and then she pushed me away and she told me to never speak to her again and I… I don't – I don't know what to do Lily. I don't."

"Did you? Did you really love her?"

Jane hesitates for a second, pushes Lily lightly away from her to wipe her face with her sleeve. Her skin is a blotched pink and her glistening eyes are rimmed with a flushed red colour. Now that Lily can see her face a little clearer, she looks just as exhausted as Lily feels.

"I think so. I hate her so much now, though, it doesn't even feel like I did."

"I'm so sorry, Jane. I really am."

"It's not your fault, you know," Jane shrugs.

"I'm still sorry. I wish you'd told me sooner. We'd have had a sleepover in my bed and I'd have braided your hair and painted your nails. And maybe we'd have shared horror stories with our wands out."

Jane lets out a wet chuckle, she's a Half-Blood, and Lily knows she's seen those American films too. They've talked about it before. There aren't that many other kids in school who understand her references, and sometimes it's a bit hard to understand theirs. But not with Jane, or Mary for that matter. That's probably why they'd gotten very close over the years. They'd been the best of mates, until they hadn't. And now that Lily understood why, everything made a lot more sense.

"You should go to the party," Jane tells her.

"Why don't you come down with me?" Lily asks her, already knowing full-well that Jane wouldn't come downstairs at all but trying nonetheless.

"No, no I would rather be alone, Lily. But thanks anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, go! Dahlia's probably getting wasted, she'll need your help."

Lily half-groans and half-manages to chuckle at the idea.

"Alright, alright. But if you need me I'll be the one loon hogging the couch."

And so Lily goes back down the stairs and to the Common Room, the booming music echoing around the staircase's stones and getting louder with each and every step she takes. Soon enough, the noise begins to get louder than she'd thought possible and as she gets off the staircase with one final step, someone yells her name and throws themselves at her.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Pleased to Meet You - Part 2**

Soon enough, the noise begins to get louder than she'd thought possible and as she gets off the staircase with one final step, someone yells out her name and throws themselves at her.

"Lily! Finally! I've been looking for you!"

"I was upstairs!" Lily screams back, trying to get her voice loud enough for Marlene to hear what she's saying.

"What?" Marlene screams before quickly shaking her head. "Doesn't matter! Come with me!"

And so Marlene McKinnon grabs Lily's hand to drag her through the crowd of inebriated students. If she were a better Prefect, she would care about that sort of stuff, make a scene, try and stop the party. But she'd been enjoying these types of things for a year and a half already when she'd gotten the letter telling her she'd acquired new responsibilities at school. And it seemed highly hypocritical of her to try and stop other people from enjoying the things she quite enjoyed herself. Especially at the end of the year when people were stressed out of their minds and needed something – anything, really – to get their minds off their grades and various types of exams.

"Do you know where the drinks are?" Lily shouts directly into Marlene's ear, coming close to her, wrapping her unused hand around Marlene's torso.

"Over there!" Marlene points out, waddling about with Lily's weight burdening her. "That's where I'm taking you."

"Oh thank Merlin you're here."

Lily is still holding on tightly, greeting a few friends along the way, but never letting go of Marlene. They do this a lot, at parties, make a game out of it, even. Marlene exaggerates her waddle, and Lily swings from side to side with every step. They eventually do get to the improvised bar opposite the chimney, where the chess table usually sits, and when Lily reluctantly unwraps herself from Marlene's torso, Marlene pours her a drink. Lily doesn't bother asking what's in it, and begins to sip happily on the beverage.

Eventually, Dahlia finds them, screaming and giggling, quite inebriated and pink-faced, Dorcas trailing behind her. She hugs Lily so tightly that Lily has to pry Dahlia's hands off of her to free herself. And Lily starts smiling broadly, desperately so when Dorcas does exactly the same thing. Dorcas is not the sort of girls who will just start hugging people when tipsy, nor is she the sort of girls to start hugging other people, at all. But Dorcas also knows when she's needed and when to comfort other people. She would never tell anyone as much, though, because she's got that reputation of hers that she likes to maintain. But Lily doesn't mind, and hugs her back so tightly that this time, it's Dorcas who has to pry Lily's hands off of her.

And perhaps everything can be okay. Perhaps betrayals, regrets and sadness aren't the only thing she'll ever know from now on. And _p_ _erhaps_ James Potter is right and the world does not feel like it is ending after all.

And sure, _sure_ , Lily is knackered and she _could_ go find the couch she's been promised but her friends are here and they're starting to dance and jump and twirl and Lily laughs and belts out the lyrics of every song she knows and Dahlia holds on to her and they start to sing duets and soon enough the rest of their friends join in. And sure, sure, she ends up spilling some sugary drink on her suede shoes – which are going to be impossible to clean up – but this is her fourth drink and Marlene has found snacks and nothing really bothers her at this point. Dahlia has found a bottle of Gigglewater and they all take a shot straight out of the bottle and laugh every time one of them sputters out a childish giggle as they swallow the clear liquid.

And Merlin how her head spins. But it spins so nicely, so warmly, so vividly, that Lily just smiles.

The Gryffindor Girl Gang – Dorcas' new drunkenly and excitedly chosen appellation for their little group of friends – is having a heated debate on which Beatles is the fittest of the bunch. And Lily's pretty sure Mary – who has somehow appeared amongst the crowd, Lily hasn't been focused enough on these types of things to remember when that happened – is about to tear Marlene to shreds for saying that she doesn't know who the Beatles are. And Lily starts laughing when Marlene poutedly points out that none of them could be fitter than Stubby Boardman.

Dahlia laughs exuberantly, placing one of her elbows on Mary's shoulder for support and half-choking on her drink.

"Lennon's definitely cuter, trust me," Mary insists, ignoring Dahlia's antics.

Lily giggles and pours herself another drink. She's having the best time ever.

So no, nothing could bother her at all. Not even Sirius Black, who's found their hiding spot in the crowd. No, not even that.

"Ladies," he slurs, lazily lolling his head to the side. "How 're you doin' this fine evenin'?"

"Merlin, Black. You're jolly aren't you?" Dorcas laughs.

And he definitely is. More so than Dahlia, who's already quite a sight to behold. For starters, his usually perfectly smooth and elegant hair has turned into a moppy mess, and his pale face has turned red. It's incredibly satisfying, in a way, that someone who pretends to be impossibly perfect all the time can get a little more human when drunk. It's sort of good for her ego. She's got terrible hair and a complexion that is terribly easy to disturb. If Sirius Black, self-acclaimed deity of mischief among the mere mortals that they are, can lose a sliver of his impassibility when inebriated then her life isn't so bad.

"Hey Evans!" he calls out. "Evans, I thin' we–" he says, gesturing between the two of them with his thumb. "–need to talk."

"What? No we don't."

"C'mon Evans!" he insists before he grabs her by the arm and pulls her through the crowd.

On their way to Merlin knows where, Lily hasn't even had the time to ask, they encounter a Ravenclaws, who stop them dead in their tracks to get them to play a game with them.

"We can't," Black tells them. "Got to talk."

But Lily has decided that she really wants to play whatever game the Ravenclaws have in mind and so, she pouts and puts her entire weight on the balls of her feet when Sirius tries to pry her away. She doesn't move.

"What game d'you have in mind?" she asks Bertram Aubrey.

And Sirius Black groans and pouts and even attempts to stomp his foot down in retaliation, which makes him slip and fall on the ground. And Lily laughs, oh, how she laughs. But so does everyone else around her, though and so it's fine, she's not the swot who's making fun of a potentially injured student. She's the funny drunk girl who's making fun of the dim-witted lad who's too drunk to stand up. Which is an improvement.

Lily is certainly feeling a bit more numb and merrier than she was before. But she's not that drunk, not really. That's what she tells Florence. Or Mary. Was Mary here? No. Not Mary. Florence then. Or some other girl. She knows she's said this to a girl. Or at least a boy with long hair and a robe on. Something like that.

Sirius Black is still on the floor. Lily doesn't really understand why.

And so she tells him so. "Get up! What're you still doing on the floor?"

And Sirius just laughs and extends his hand to her and she grabs it and tries to pull him up but he tugs on her hand instead to pull her down next to him. She refuses to let him do so, leans backwards and puts her weight on the balls of her feet, tries to pull as hard as she can but her lack of upper body strength is clearly showing. And so she lets go of his hand as he yelps "no!" when he realizes she's leaving him behind. That's when his hand comes to clasp around her ankle.

"Come sit with me on the floor!" he whines.

And the room spins and sputters and her own laughter soothes every wound in her and she grabs a stray cup filled with an unknown liquid, but Lily doesn't care and drinks it anyway. It turns out to be Butterbeer and Firewhisky mixed together. Lily pulls a face at the realization but it doesn't even really taste bad, which is good, because Lily does not want to be the first person to throw up at this party. No thank you. She's blinking and the room wobbles and so does she. But it's fine.

She's not that drunk.

She just needs to sit down. Probably. She blinks again. Oh no. Not probably. _Definitely_. And so she caves in.

"Fine," she tells Sirius Black, whose hand is still holding onto her ankle.

And so Lily Evans ends up sitting on the floor next to Sirius Black.

"My cousin Bella," he tells her. And she has to both stop herself from groaning out loud at his mention of the name and avoid getting kneed in the face by a random passer-by. It's a hard, tough life on the hardwood floor, she could tell you that alright.

"She's such a vicious bitch," he continues, and she hears her roaring laughter before she even feels it.

"Tell me about it! My sister's the same. The exact same."

"No no, no – no, you don't get it. She's cruel, sadis-" and to this, he sighs, furrows his brow in concentration and tuts his tongue. "What's that word?"

"What word?" Lily asks him.

Sirius isn't making any sense. And the room is blurry. Oh Merlin's pants if it isn't the blurriest room Lily has ever blurringly seen.

"Sadis-thing!"

"Sadistic? Is that what you meant?" she asks, and he nods enthusiastically in return. "Merlin, how much have you had to drink?"

"A lot."

"So, what's with your cousin Bella?"

"Ah, well, she's getting married this summer. And I'm invited. And I'm not going. I'm not. I hate her. So I'm not going."

"Well, you don't have to go."

"But I do, Evans, I do."

"No you don't! Not if you don't want to. You could pretend to be ill, tell them 'oh no I got the stomach flu! I must have touched a Muggle by accident! I'm goin' to die!' and then you're fine!" she tells him, trying to imitate his voice and his accent and failing miserably.

And he barks out a laugh that shakes his entire body off the floor for a second, or so she thinks. But he sits up after this, and hugs her so tightly and so quickly that she almost topples over with the sheer force of it.

"You know," he tells her. "I coul' just snog you righ' 'ere!"

"Ooooh! Good point! That would definitely make them think you're going to die!" she snickers. "Kissing a Muggle-Born is definitely going to get you killed."

Sirius laughs at this, at her, at the whole entire world, and if the room weren't so damn determined to wobble, she would have started hugging him again. But she just laughs, too. And the world has never been so full of merriment, or so it looks like, from the hardwood floor of the Gryffindor Common Room.

She really has no idea why she and Sirius haven't been best mates for years now. And so she tells him so.

"We should be best friends, you and I," she solemnly says, grabbing both of his shoulders, and trying to look him dead in the eyes. Which would be easier if he weren't still laughing.

But he stops laughing fairly quickly, and he's got that mischievous look in his eyes that screams danger to her.

And she should have listened to that feeling in her guts because not a second later Sirius Black actually does the impossible.

The bloody idiot actually goes and grabs her head with both of his hands and kisses her. On the cheek, but still. It's downright unheard of. She's known Sirius Black for five years now, and he's never done that to her. She's so taken aback by the gesture that she doesn't move away, at first, and lets him finish. And sure her brain has trouble processing things right now, but that's not her fault. Sirius is grinning at her wildly, still holding her face in his hands.

"What did you do that for?" she protests, pulling herself out of his grasp.

"You're my bes' mate now! D'you think you'd avoid tha'? No way!"

"That's so sweet of you, you know?" Merlin, she's actually getting emotional over this, and to say she was about to be mad at him. "Come here!" She tells him before she starts to hug him tightly.

"You're a better mate to me than anyone's ever been," he tells her, hugging her back so tightly she's struggling to breathe.

"Now that's a lie!" Lily protests, struggling to break free from his grasp and slapping him nonchalantly on the shoulder. "I _know_ you're practically married to James Potter."

"Ha! He wishes, the prat! I'm married to you now, no take backs."

"Deal. Can't wait to tell mum about this."

"I'm definitely moving in with you, y'know."

"Oh you'll get along just fine with my sister."

They both laugh really loudly and she almost feels like floating away.

And oh Merlin, the room is definitely spinning now. She needs to pee. She really really needs to pee.

"I need to pee, alright? Meet you on the couch after this?"

"Nah, it's fine. You go and meet up with your friends, 'lright?"

"Alright. Gotta tell them we're married now!"

And Sirius' barking laughter echoes so loudly around the room that several people stop talking and turn around to look at the both of them – Sirius still casually sitting on the floor and Lily struggling to get to her feet.

Once she's up – and dear Merlin if it doesn't take her an embarrassing amount of time to do that – she waves at him one last time before disappearing into the crowd. And so she goes in search of the bathroom. There are so many people around, it's hard to see where she's going. She wishes she were taller, it'd make the situation easier.

She finds the bathroom – she knows there's always a bathroom at these parties, somehow someone always conjures one up – pounds on the door to make sure no one is inside and locks the door behind her.

Now that she's sitting the room is definitely spinning faster. Bloody hell how is she supposed to get back up.

She needs the couch. The bloody couch James Potter has promised her. She wonders where he's been all this time. She hasn't seen him for hours now. And sure, it's a pretty big party, but she feels like he's been avoiding her on purpose. She doesn't really care. She just needs another drink and then the couch.

It just takes her a few more seconds – or maybe years, who's to say? – to execute that plan. Bloody fucking hell it's hard to get dressed back up.

She parts her way through the students, collides with a few of them and apologizes, giggles and stumbles and finds the unofficial bar of the party in the same corner it used to be. But her friends aren't here any more.

Oh, Sirius Black is back up now. She sees him in the crowd, waves at him, and at Bertram Aubrey. Aubrey mouths something to her which she doesn't hear. Sirius stops looking at her, says something to Aubrey. And it looks like… Is Bertram Aubrey getting mad at him? Or maybe it's Sirius who's getting mad. Lily doesn't really understand why. But Sirius Black has just punched him and the crowd cries out in fear in a collective shriek that makes Lily cringe and close her eyes. She gets shoved by someone, pushed out the way and then back again where she was before. And nothing makes sense and Sirius Black is back on the floor but this time he's standing over Bertram Aubrey and yelling profanities at him and he punches him one last time before he spits blood onto his face, gets up and leaves out of Lily's sight. Bertram Aubrey follows him, or maybe he doesn't, she doesn't know, she just sees him disappear behind a few students, and then everything is over and she starts breathing again.

And Lily takes a few steps back, bumps the back of her knees against something, turns around to apologize but doesn't find anything other than a worn-down velvety red fabric.

Bloody Sirius Black! He hasn't even told her anything! He'd just dragged her through the room, nearly snogged her, married her and now he'd gotten in a fight with Aubrey bloody Bertram, the incredible wanker! Bloody new husband of hers.

Ridiculous! This is simply ridiculous! She is so cross now! So cross! Her brain tells her so. She doesn't exactly know why she is so cross, but she is. That fact is undeniable. Even in the state she's in – which is nothing more than slightly tipsy, she could _definitely_ tell you that – she knows this. Of course she does!

Oh, Merlin, she definitely needs another drink. She is so incredibly cross at her husband, even though she knows he's not _really_ her husband. And so she goes and finds the bar. It takes her another while, she's almost certain she's heard someone call out her name, but she's too far gone in the crowd and she's not tall enough to try and have a look around, plus, someone rudely shoves her when she tries and turn around. And so she continues on, merging and colliding with upper limbs and stray cups filled with various types of alcohol. But she gets to the 'bar' anyway, and sighs in relief.

She pours herself a drink, mixes it with some of Patrick Partridge's Perfect Pumpkin juice – the "everlasting freeze" one, the best one they have – she finds in a jug, set next to some Muggle sugary fizzy drink she knows Dahlia is particularly fond of and turns around.

And oh…

"Hi, Remus!"

"Hey!" he greets her with a sort of sorrowful look on his face that won't be so casually concealed by his shy, usual grin.

"D'you want a drink?" she screams at him. She hadn't meant to scream, actually. It's just that her voice had decided to do so anyway. She doesn't really register his sadness, doesn't have the proper reaction to it, but doesn't realize it. And he smiles at her screams anyway, more genuine than before.

"What are you having?"

"I think it's rum? Not sure. Want some?"

He nods and she pours him a drink and he takes the glass from her hands and a sip and chuckles.

"Oh it's definitely rum."

"Wicked," she tells him with a wink and a grin.

"I like your dress," he says and her smile broadens.

"Thanks! I borrowed it from Jane."

He's opened his mouth and seems to be about to say something that sounds like the beginning of "James" when something catches his eye and he suddenly darts off into the distance, telling her "Oh fuck's sake. Sorry, I've got to take care of this!" and leaves Lily terribly confused for a second. But she's got other things in mind. Like the fact that she really wants to go and sit down.

She's seen the couch before, has passed by it at some point. She's just got to concentrate and find it again, now.

In the end she just ends up roaming the room to search for it, glass in hand and determined.

She doesn't know how long it takes her, but she's been humming a song by that American band she can't remember the name of and somehow she's found her way to the couch, at long long last. And she finds it empty, to top it off. She sighs in reliefs and sinks down onto its sweet sweet comfort. She's never leaving this spot ever again. Not even to pee. And it's not like she needs to pee again anyway.

Damned be her bleeding bladder.

But Lily Evans will not be moved. Not even by her own body's needs. This is _her_ couch now. And so she sinks down even further into the couch's pillows and folds her legs underneath her, bobbing her head to the rhythm of the music.

She stays there a while, alone and singing to the music. Benjy Fenwick comes and sits next to her but he's just talking to some other blonde kid Lily doesn't know and when she says 'hi' to them, they barely wave at her before they turn back to their conversation.

And so she stays quite alone, because Benjamin and his friend leave after a while, and bobs her head to the music, untucks one of her legs to bounce it to the rhythm of the music until James Potter, of all people, comes to join her on her newly acquired property.

And Merlin if he doesn't look like he's had a rough night.

"Hey," he tells her, his voice softer than she'd thought it would be, and yet she's still able to hear him through the ruckus.

"Hi!" she cheerily responds.

Her glass is half empty now. She's not getting back up to get another one. She might summon one later.

"Where have you been all evening?" he asks, sitting down at a fair distance away from her.

"I went upstairs to change!" she explains, her voice louder than she'd like it to be, tugging on the skirt of the dress to show him proof of it.

"Yeah, I noticed, very nice and very blood-free," he remarks with a smile that somehow doesn't look quite right.

"Aw, thanks!" she grins and takes a sip out of her cup.

"So, apart from the change of clothes?"

"Oh that! Well, I had a chat with Jane, we're fine, now. Did I tell you we'd had a fight earlier? It's all better now. But she stayed upstairs, she's not feeling very well, probably got the flu or something. And then when I came down Marlene, Dorcas and Dahlia made me drink with them. And then your mate – Black – he made me sit on the floor with him? I don't know, that was weird. Did you know he's my best friend now? Not yours? We made a pack, me and him. You're out, I'm sorry to inform you of that."

"What?" James tried to ask her, but she ignores him and continues talking.

"And then I went to the bathroom, and then I went to grab a drink, that's where I saw your other mate, and then I came here. Benjy Fenwick ignored me, that was very rude of him, I've never done him any harm, but other than that it's been fun. Hey, have you seen my friends anywhere, by any chance?"

The look on his face is nothing short of the definition of bewilderment. And she wonders what she's done wrong for a second.

But then, he shakes his head, lifts his right hand – off of which a bottle of Butterbeer she hadn't seen before is dangling – and puts it to his lips. He drinks, swallows – the movement making his Adam's apple bob up and down distractingly, it's as if he's managed to put the room's axis right back into place and nothing spins any more – and puts his hand down on the couch's sit cushion where the Butterbeer bottle is resting, next to his knee.

"Haven't seen them in a while, no. Why?"

"I don't know, it's strange. Everyone is being a bit strange tonight."

"Are you?"

"I mean, I'm talking to you, aren't I? That's pretty strange, don't you think?"

"Yeah," he almost whispers, and she reads the word off his lips more than she can hear it.

"Are you alright?" she asks him, quizzing her brow.

"Sort of," he tells her, shrugging.

James Potter has not had the best evening of his life. Far from that, really.

First of all, and probably worst of all, he has not seen Lily Evans ever since he's walked into the Common Room. That was at least three hours ago now. And a lot of things have happened in between.

Amongst other things, Sirius and him have had a fight. Now, it wasn't the worst fight they'd had so far – that had been a few months ago, when Sirius had lured Snape into the Whomping Willow's secret passageway. But it was a fight nonetheless. A tiny, boring fight. A slight argument. But that never made James happy.

It all started fairly innocuously at first, but their fights always did. They'd had a drink, shared Sirius' bottle of Firewhisky, drank some more, as James was waiting for Lily to come back downstairs, which seemed to take an eternity. Peter had brought his date along, and they'd chatted and laughed and Margareta Catchlove, one of Peter's date's friend, had come around to thank Remus for inviting her and a few of her friends to a Gryffindor party.

And Sirius had snorted haughtily at her and ignored her presence.

"Bloody Prefects. Bloody Ravenclaw Prefects and their bloody Ravenclaw Prefects thank-yous," he'd mumbled to James.

"Is it because of the detention she gave you last week?" James asks, bemused.

"Two! She gave me _two_ detentions last week! I bloody hate her! She's the worst of them all."

"You hate every Prefect in this school."

"That's not true! I quite like Evans, I'll have you know!"

"You hated her yesterday!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did! You said, and I quote 'that's her own damn fault for being friends with a Slytherin, she's had it coming and I'm not sorry.' Don't lie! I know you don't like her."

"But that's not me hating her at all! She's a nice person, she just has a shite taste in friends! I'll go and find her later, you'll see! She likes me too, we had quite a laugh this afternoon. And she looks like 'at Muggle girl in the biki-thingie – oh, Merlin, forgot the name again – that Muggle girl in the poster I have at home. Mother hates it."

"Mate, you're not making _any_ sense right now."

"Well I would if you weren't so damn… so damn bleeding – fuck I need to puke."

"Well, go to the bathroom!"

And so Sirius went, looking paler than usual and rather sickly, into the crowd and disappeared for a long long while.

And that was when things began to escalate.

Now, he barely knew Margareta Catchlove's friends. Barely, if at all, as a matter of fact, but he would have never guessed they were the kind of people to create unnecessary drama at a party. And yet, there they were, two fairly sympathetic-looking girls trying to ruin everyone's evenings with petty words and rude actions.

"I just… I really don't like how he's acting, it's just so immature, you know? Not like you, Pete, you're very mature, I think," Miranda Baggins points out all of a sudden, taking James by surprise. He throws Remus a look, and Remus just narrows his eyes in retaliation. Even when he's mad at Sirius he'd defend him 'till the very end. That's just what mates do.

"She's right, Pete. I think you're way more mature than he is. I think he's gone to puke now, and it's not even 10p.m. yet. You would never do that, I know. You're very mature like that."

"Am I? You're very mature too, Greta."

The slag chuckles merrily in answer and James just sneers at her, drinking silently. Oh he's definitely going to have a talk with 'Pete' over this.

"I mean, he's not a terrible person, but we all know what kind of family he comes from… Not that he's like them, it's just… You know, you get it, don't you? He's not like you and me, isn't he?"

And that is the moment James loses his temper. Oh, 'Greta' Catchlove and Miranda Baggins were an awful bunch of sneaky pretentious berks alright, trying to put thoughts into Peter's brain about Sirius.

"Excuse me, that's my best friend you're talking about."

"I didn't mean to offend anyone," she defends herself, putting one gloved hand onto his forearm for effect.

"Well you did, and quite frankly, I don't appreciate the tone you're using to talk about him. Peter knows what kind of person Sirius is. I know what kind of person Sirius is. You have no damn idea what kind of person he is. You don't know him. You don't know him at all, in fact, I don't think I've ever seen the both of you have a conversation before that didn't involve you giving him detention. So, even if you didn't 'mean' to offend us, you did. Right, Peter?"

And Peter, that bloody fucking idiot, has turned beet-red, looks like a Grindylow out of water, and refuses to answer James's very simple question.

It was quite clear-cut for him. You always sided with your best mates, no matter what. No matter if there was an average-looking bird who might be willing to let you snog her at some point during the party, no matter if you were drunk, no matter if your bloody damn tongue and your left arm had been cut off and you'd been petrified all at once. You always found a way to defend your mates' honour. No matter what.

"Well?"

Peter begins to open his mouth and half stutters out a few practically inaudible syllables and James doesn't think he can last through all of this.

"You know what? Fuck off, Pete. Sirius would have had your back over this. You know he would have. If you're not willing to do the same, I don't know why we're friends. Remus, say something?"

"He's right, Peter. That's very disappointing of you. I thought you were a better friend."

Remus is way too sober for this kind of party, and James definitely needs another drink, but Merlin it's good to know that someone has your back. James is turning around, ready to leave Peter to his girlfriend and her swottish friends, when Peter's hand comes to grab at him.

"I'm sorry," he squeaks out, looking quite pitiful.

"Don't pretend," James huffs. "It's not me you should be apologizing to."

Both he and Remus leave, and James wants to punch something, someone, anything. Fucking Peter.

"What the fuck is wrong with him?" James asks Remus.

"I don't know. He's just very dumb when he's with her. I think he actually likes her. We should try and find Marlene."

"Where the hell is Sirius, by the way?"

"He's probably off trying to find Evans, he told me he wanted to talk to her. Haven't seen her all evening, though."

"Neither have I," James sighs, it's a little worrying, actually. He'd planned an entire evening on the common room couch with her, in his head, and she'd been nowhere in sight for the better part of… Oh, almost four hours now. It is nearly midnight, and he hasn't seen her at all.

Finding Marlene turns out to be fairly easy after all. Easier than finding Lily. She, Marlene, that is, is standing on top of a tattered side table and has begun throwing charms at the people bellow her, changing their appearances and their voices, making them do impressions of people around the school when they find her.

James cheers her on too. And it turns out that Dahlia Fletcher's impression of Professor Flitwick is quite the event and people are gathering around to cheer and clapp her on.

"Get down here right this moment, young lady!" Fletcher is scorning Marlene, her index finger very firmly pointed at her. "That will be fifteen points from Gryffindor!"

At this, Marlene laughs and gets down her pedestal, holding out her hand to Fletcher so that she can grab it and help her get down.

"Ah, look who's here!" Marlene greets the both of them. "Have you seen Lily, by any chance?"

James shakes his head.

"I was about to ask you the same thing, I haven't seen her since we've come in from Dumbledore's office. Is she okay?"

"Yeah, we saw her earlier, she was having fun, but then Sirius took her away. Said he wanted to talk to her, I don't know. That's the kind of stuff Sirius does, I s'ppose."

"I should try and find him, I haven't seen him in a while either."

"Not before you dance with me first!" she exclaims, poking him in the side of his arm and grinning childishly.

"The last time I let you do that, you almost broke my toes."

"I was also twelve, you prat."

"Yeah, and you've gained what? Two whole stones since then? You've only gotten more dangerous with age."

"I should definitely break your toes for daring to speak about a lady's weight."

"Well, I'm infinitely sorry, my lady, please accept this dance in apology."

"I accept it, although please do note that I am begrudgingly accepting and am only doing so for etiquette's sake."

"How good-mannered of you, your mother would be very proud."

"Pfah! As if! My mum would have told me to kick your butt," Marlene laughs, but takes his hand in hers nonetheless.

They've known each other their whole lives, she was sort of like the distant sister he'd never had, teasing him and laughing with him – sometimes _at_ him, too – all the way. He was glad she was at Hogwarts with him, he'd have missed her otherwise.

And so they laugh and dance, Marlene purposefully stepping onto his left foot from time to time and James shoves her away and flicks her shoulder in retaliation, which makes Marlene laugh louder. The song ends soon enough – thank Merlin, James thinks, desperately trying to get his foot as far away from Marlene's dangerous shoes as possible.

"Alright, I gotta go, now."

"Come back when you find Sirius, alright? We should play a drinking game, later, it's been a while."

James nods and grabs Remus, who is laughing with Mary MacDonald, to go and find Sirius.

"I should go get some drinks, you go and find him, alright?"

"Sure, alright, if you need me just shout!"

James thus ends up all alone in the crowd, and he's almost certain he's seen Lily, he sees a flash of auburn hair fly by, a few clusters of people away, and yells out her name. She turns around once, but he loses sight of her immediately. Maybe it wasn't her, anyway. Maybe his mind is playing tricks on him. It wouldn't be the first time.

He barely has time to wallow in his own love-struckedness that he sees something that makes his blood boil.

The positive thing is that he's found Sirius. The not-so positive thing is that Sirius is bleeding and is currently engaged in a fight with the bloody wanker that is Bertram Aubrey near the Common Room's doorway.

James sighs, slowly rolls up his shirt sleeves and runs head first into the fight. He only wishes Peter were looking, so that he could actually learn what it means to be someone's best friend.

"What the bloody fuck is going on here?" He asks, grabbing Aubrey by the shoulder and pulling him away from Sirius.

"Your mate is drunk is what's going on!"

"And so?"

"And so he's fucking rude!"

"I don't care what you say. Sirius, what happened?"

"Fuckin' twat here, he insulted my wife, didn' he? And he bloody elbowed me, didn' he? Yeah. And then 'e pushed me away when I got up. So I told him to fuck off!"

"And did he?" James ask, as if this is completely normal.

"Obviously not. I mean, he did at first, right? But then I went to go smoke a fag in the corridor and he tried to follow me, fuckin' useless bastard. He even insulted my wife again."

"Your what?"

"My wife, Evans! I'll explain later."

"What the hell?"

"I told you I'd explain later. He said she's a slag."

"You said _what_ now?" James shouts, shaking Aubrey's shoulder.

"She's wearing a slaggy dress, that's on her, not me, mate," Aubrey shrugs, as if that was a good enough excuse to insult the prettiest girl on Earth.

James doesn't exactly recall asking his fist to collide with Aubrey's cheekbone, but he feels the pain in his knuckles nonetheless.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" James shouts, anger reverberating around his skeleton, bone by bone, nerve by nerve, pulling him inward and outward, his muscles ache to strike again.

But Aubrey's friend come and drag him away, and Remus runs up to him to stop him from having another go at the useless wanker's head.

James is just tired now. He hears Remus talk to him and Sirius, but doesn't really hear the words.

"I saw Evans, by the way, I know you were looking for her. She was at the drink cart."

That part James hears. Oh, he definitely does hear _that_. His brain might be daft but it's not _that_ daft.

"Alright, I gotta go then."

It's not that James had meant to rudely leave, it's just that this was, after all, his one and only chance at finding Lily of the evening. And he couldn't just let that go. Sirius was alright. Remus would take care of his drunken ass. Soon enough, James finds the cart, alright. But Lily Evans is nowhere in sight. So, he grabs a drink and decides to go and try to find the couch he'd offered her earlier.

It takes a bit of navigating around to find it, because the room makes no sense right now, with the furniture having been pushed to the side and all of that, but he finds it. And finds her sitting on it. He feels something, which he manages to identify as relief, settling down into his stomach and he sighs and grins all at once. She looks magnificent tonight. He tries to stifle the grin that's threatening to spread on his foolish face, but she's making it quite difficult for him right now.

"Hey," he tells her, barely able to talk, but she still seems to have heard him, because she echoes his salutation with a warm smile and a 'hi' that he can definitely hear just fine.

She looks happy enough, he muses, sitting there all alone. She's not as sad as she was earlier. That's a good thing.

"Where have you been all evening?" he asks, sitting down at the opposite end of the couch. He doesn't want to overwhelm her with his presence just now.

"I went upstairs to change!" she answers, he voice louder than he'd thought it would be. And James almost cringes, but she's clearly too inebriated to talk at her normal level.

"Yeah, I noticed, very nice and very blood-free." Her dress is gorgeous, and so is she, but he cannot stop thinking about what Aubrey has said. She definitely does not look like a slag. Not at all. She looks marvellous.

"Aw, thanks!" she grins and takes a sip out of her cup.

"So, apart from the change of clothes?" James wonders aloud, raising a brow at her. He hasn't seen her all evening, he really needs to know what's happened to her in the meantime.

Lily tells him about her evening, talking very quickly and making next to no sense for the most part, and James gathers that she's had a few more drinks than she ought to have had tonight, but she's got this slight blush on her cheeks and her lips are stuck in this semi-grin and James thinks she's never looked as pretty. She tells him some wild tale about Sirius that makes him smile and he lets her talk all she wants. Merlin, her voice is so soothing to him.

"Hey, have you seen my friends anywhere, by any chance?" she asks him.

And James has to ponder his options for a second.

He could tell her he's seen Marlene, Dahlia, Dorcas and Mary near the staircases. He could. But she would surely just want to get up and leave him alone. And it wouldn't exactly be true, because he'd seen them there maybe fifteen minutes ago by now. And they could have gone anywhere in the meantime.

He takes a sip of his nearly empty Butterbeer, it's more of a nervous thing than out of thirst. But he feels like he needs to do it anyway.

"Haven't seen them in a while, no. Why?" he lies, pathetically so. What a filthy, ugly liar he makes.

"I don't know, it's strange. Everyone is being a bit strange tonight."

James has no idea what she's talking about. Is he strange right now? No one has really seemed strange to him tonight, apart from Peter, who's just being a prat and with whom he really needs to have a chat.

"Are you?" he asks her, genuinely wondering. Is she strange right now? She doesn't seem so. She's a bit drunk, sure, but that's just it.

"I mean, I'm talking to you, aren't I? That's pretty strange, don't you think?"

He feels the pain of her careless blow deep in his stomach. She hasn't meant it as such, but it hurts him nonetheless.

"Yeah," he answers breathlessly. It sure would take everyone to be strange for Lily Evans to be talking to him.

"Are you alright?" she asks him, quizzing her brow.

"Sort of," he tells her, shrugging.

He wishes he were. He really wishes that everything would be just right, for once. There she is, jolly and pink-faced in her pink dress and brown shoes. There's a stain on one of them, and James wonders if she's noticed. He doesn't tell her, doesn't want to upset her by pointing it out.

"I'm sorry," she tells him, coming a bit closer to him and putting a hand on his knee.

"You don't need to be," he whispers, feeling like his heart might just give out any second. There's this incredible warmth where her hand is still resting, he swears it's almost as if she's thrown a charm at him. Merlin he might just die any second now. She doesn't seem to realize her hand is still there. Or maybe she doesn't care, maybe she's just that casual about things.

"I heard you got married?" he asks her, because the information somehow made its way back up to the top of his thoughts.

At that, she laughs, not just a small chuckle, but a full-throated laugh that makes her head fall back slightly, her hair sliding up her shoulders.

"Oh, yes, I'm glad he's spreading the news," she manages to say after the blissful eternity of her laughter has faded away. "He's apparently moving in very soon. My sister's going to be _thrilled_. I can't wait."

James looks very confused. He's not even jealous, he just does not understand the situation here.

"What do you mean? Are you actually married?"

"What?" she laughs again. "Oh, Merlin save us all, no! Obviously not! You'd think he'd have invited you for that!"

"Are you in love or something? Did I miss something? I'm very confused right now."

She sniggers, merriment glowing on her face.

"Alright, I'll explain it to you. So, here we are, you know? Sitting on the floor and all that. And I tell him we should be best friends, because, really, we should, I think that's pretty clear. And he tells me I'm the best friend he's ever had – I know, I know, don't look so cross! It's not my fault! – So I tell him, you know, you're basically married to James Potter, right? I'm sure you can confirm this. But he tells me that _you wish_ you were married to him, but now _we_ 're married and I mean we as in Sirius and I, you know? Yeah, alright you do. Okay so then we're now married, because Sirius says so, and he tells me he's moving in. So I guess he's moving in with me," she answers with exaggerated gestures and cheeky smiles.

And James has never been so befuddled and in love in his entire life. She's something else, alright, this Lily Evans. He has to take a moment, just stares at her and admires the insanity of the marvellousness of her entire being, the perfect craziness of her existence. It's improbable, doesn't make any sense, really. He opens his mouth a couple of times before he's actually capable of speaking. And when he does, his voice is a barely inaudible mess of nerves and love-stricken realizations. She seems to have realized her hand is still resting on his knee, and takes it away with an apologetic smile, leaving him to freeze so near her warmth.

"You're not who I thought you were," he tells her, suddenly, his voice barely louder than the music.

"Who did you think I was?" she snorts into her drink, pushing her hair out of her face with her other hand. Merlin she's tipsy.

"I don't know… I think I had no idea who you were, actually."

He seems a lot more sober than any sane human ought to be at this time of night at this type of party. It's clearly unfair. He's also clearly too close to her on this damn couch that she's claimed as hers for the night. But that's her fault. He'd made a point of sitting on the other end of it. She'd been the one to move closer. She'd been the one who touched his knee. That was her fault. But it was alright, he didn't seem to hate her for it.

"Don't worry," she says, louder than she had planned to. "I have no idea who you are either."

"Well then," he smirks, picking up a cup of what she thinks might be Firewhisky from the side table behind him, where he'd previously put his empty Butterbeer bottle. "Hi there, the name's James Potter. Pleased to meet you."

She giggles – mostly because she's knackered, unsteady and _merry_ and a little bit because he's ridiculous – and shakes the hand he's extended to her.

"Hiya, James Potter," she tells him, still shaking his hand and giggling. "I'm Lily Evans. I'm a Gryffindor, 5th year, I feel like we _might_ have met before. Maybe around this castle?"

"Oh no, I don't think so, I would have remembered you."

She blushes, she knows she does. He takes a sip from the glass in his hand and smiles at her. They're still shaking hands, and it's ridiculous and she probably looks like a complete lunatic because she cannot stop smiling and her cheeks are very likely beet red and her hair is definitely dishevelled and… Oh Merlin she's way past tipsy.

"Well then, James… That's your name, right?" she says and waits for him to nod so that she can continue, except it's hard to start talking again when you're about to burst into laughter. "Alright. Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, James."

And maybe she'll feel different in the daylight, maybe come tomorrow, she will regret everything that has happened tonight, but she feels weightless, right now. And he's still smiling at her and there's this warmth in her chest she'd thought had disappeared forever and… And it's just very, very nice to have finally met him is all.

And in a few minutes, someone would yell to inform them that Professor McGonagall was on her way, and the students would hurry and run and scream and scram and she would stay right there, on that very couch and laugh at the craziness around her. And James Potter would look at her and laugh with her, and they'd eventually get up and run, too, parting ways on the stairway with a wave and a smile and a newfound warmth in their stomachs.

And one day, years from now, Lily would remember this as the first day she actually met James Potter. And, oh dear Merlin, will she not be glad to have done so.

* * *

 **Author's note: So, first of all, let me tell you that I am VERY sorry for the insane amount of time it took me to complete this, but I'm a mess, ya know, and that's just how I am sometimes. Also, work is the worst, don't do it kids. BUT! I am also very happy to say that this fic is now complete and to all of you who have read it until the very end I am very thankful that you decided to take the time to do so. I hope to see you with another fic sooner rather than later.**


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